


Being of Use

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-05
Updated: 2007-11-30
Packaged: 2019-06-11 21:00:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15324228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Things go a little worse for Spike in Sunnydale after he gets chipped. Having a helpless victim around brings out the darkness in several of the Scoobies.Takes place before "Something Blue" and in an alternate universe where Spike's sexiness is a power even Slayers can't resist... oh wait, that's THIS universe...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsofspike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofspike/gifts).



> Non-con, slavery (sort of), BDSM, physical and sexual abuse, etc... 
> 
> It's going to be a long one, because I just gotta do the slow build-up. Sorry. It's my kink, I guess. :)

It started in the watcher’s apartment.

The kids took turns bringing Spike a mug of blood each day, and while he could hear them whine and complain about whose turn it was, each one seemed to enjoy a good round of ‘torment the Spike’ when it came down to it.

The slayer was the worst. Tossing her shining blonde hair, stroking her neck, wearing those barely-there tops. (Like he couldn’t see her pulse from across the room already.)

“Hungry, Spikey?” She taunted, setting the mug down on top of the toilet tank. “Why don’t you come and get it?”

“Piss off, Slayer. I’m not playing.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So you’re not hungry?”

“I said, ‘I’m not playing’.”

“Then you won’t need this.” Buffy picked up the mug and started oh-so-slowly toward the bathroom door.

Spike bit his lip. It was three steps to the door. He could beat her at this little game of chicken.

She stopped at the door. “Last chance.”

“Not playing,” he smugly added emphasis to his last words, “little girl.”

Buffy scowled, walked over to the sink and tipped the mug over. Thick and smooth, the blood poured soundlessly.

Spike jumped, chains jerking and dragging against porcelain and chrome. “Are you daft? Yes! ‘M hungry! Stop!”

The tub did its part to amplify the sounds of struggling vampire as Buffy poured his dinner down the sink, turned on the tap and rinsed it away.

“Giles! Bloody wanker! Get in here!” Spike cried.

Buffy swung the mug by her side as she walked out of the room.

“Rupert!” Spike thrashed his chains and roared at the closed door.

“Oh for god’s sake,” Rupert Giles leaned into the bathroom. “What is it this time?”

“She didn’t give me my bloody… well… blood.” He grimaced at the unfortunate word juxtaposition.

“You aren’t going to die from one missed meal.”

“Easy for you to say with that middle-aged librarian gut. I’m losing muscle tone here!”

The door closed again. Spike sagged against the cold tub.

And, with the joys of vampire hearing keeping him never too bored in the house of laughs, he heard the conversation completely.

“Buffy, Spike says that you did not, in fact, give him his meal.”

“Hey, look, empty cup! He’s lying. Evil vampire. What a shock.”

“Buffy you are the one who insisted on keeping him alive… er, undead. I will not be seeing to his feeding, his constant entertainment, his tempter-tantrums.”

“Geez, Giles, you make it sound like he’s a puppy I brought home. I don’t want this any more than you do. I’d take him home, I would, but you want to explain him to my mom?”

“Tell her off, Rupes! Tell her what for!” Spike’s shout was not as muffled as Giles would have liked.

The watcher sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just keep him quiet,” he said. “If that means not feeding him, I am perfectly all right with that, but only if it’s done QUIETLY.”

***

It became routine. Xander’s turn: a few smart remarks and false bravado but eventually a drink. Giles’ turn: stick up bum placated with the most insincere cooperation. Willow’s turn: all business. Buffy’s turn: the blood goes down the sink.

The third time he started talking before she closed the door behind herself. “I’m not going to scream and rant. Think I’ve figured out there’s no cavalry here. You want to throw it away, go ahead.”

Disappointment flickered on her features. He tried to smother his grin, but all that did was make it even more tight-lipped and smug. “That’s right. Here ends your little experiment in control.”

But she shrugged. “Don’t you get it? I mean, look at you. You’re chained up! Who do you think is in charge here?”

“Rupert Giles,” Spike answered with a smirk.

Buffy made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “You are, beyond a doubt, the most annoying, irritating, stupid…”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” Spike waggled his eyebrows.

Buffy left, with the full mug of blood in hand, but at least, Spike thought, he’d won that round.

Until she returned. She stepped up onto the toilet, reached in to the shower and turned on the water.

“Bloody hell!” Spike spat and turned his face as the shower sprayed cold directly in his eyes.

Buffy climbed onto the toilet so she could hold the showerhead and direct it to more thoroughly soak the vampire. She was genuinely smiling. This was more fun than squirt gun fights!

Giles’ voice came muffled from the other side of the door. “Buffy? What’s going on in there?”

“Nothing!” She called out.

“Rupert! She’s bloody well drowning me!”

“Come on! He deserves it!”

There was a pause. “Well then,” Giles said, “Carry on.”

Spike was gobsmacked. He had thought the white hats would be, well, a little more white hat. He was startled into stillness, just letting the water run down his face.

Buffy finally turned it off. She dried her hands with the guest towel.

“You can’t leave me like this. Soddin’ jeans are… sodden! Slayer. Come on.”

“Well, you should have thought of that,” she said, and bounced out the door of the bathroom.

“Rupert!” Spike hollered, yanking on his chains.

“Oh for pity’s sake,” the watcher said, and there was the sound of a slamming door.

***

Buffy couldn’t stop thinking about how Spike had looked all wet – kind of cute, really, droplets clinging to his lashes – had he always had such thick lashes?

So as Giles closed up his apartment and made her apologize for “strapping me with that inconsiderate prat of a vampire”, she took his keys and promised to “clean him up”.

She went to the coffee shop, first, though. Even thinking about being stuck in wet jeans made her need a hot mocha.

When she got back, after a calming coffee beverage and flipping through a fashion magazine, he was…

“Oh my god, your hair!”

Buffy hung on the bathroom doorknob, a hand clenched over her mouth. Spike’s normally slicked-back tresses were curling haphazardly around his face.

The scowl made it all the more adorable.

“Piss off. Don’t see me making fun of your lousy dye job.”

Buffy straightened with difficulty. Her mouth twitched with repressed giggles. “Does widdle Spikey hate his curls? Is that why you gel yourself within an inch of sanity?”

He titled his head back. “I’m wet, you stupid bitch, and chained up. I don’t give a toss what you think of my hair.”

“Liar.” Buffy snickered one more time and wiped a small tear from the corner of her eye. “Anyway, I promised Giles I’d get you cleaned up, so… hrm.”

She looked him over, her hands out as though unsure what to touch.

He raised his wrists. “How about you unchain me and I get myself dried off?”

She frowned. “Ew. So much of the ‘no’.”

“I can’t hurt you and it’s the bleedin’ middle of the day.” He sighed as she continued to tap her lip thoughtfully. “It’s not you have to trust me.”

“Hang on,” she said, and left.

It wasn’t like he could get MORE uncomfortable, he supposed, and busied himself with trying to see how bad his hair was by rolling his eyes as high as he could. He saw a few blurry yellow tufts. He glared across the room at the large, empty mirror as though accusing it of favoritism.

Buffy came back with a glass flask marked with a cross.

“Oh come on!”

She set it on the toilet tank and waggled a key at him. “I’ll unlock the chains, you’ll strip out of your wet clothes, then sit back down and I chain you back up. Any funny business and it’s more fun with water, only the holy kind so way less fun for you. Got it?”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a sadistic bitch, Slayer?”

“No, but since I’m about to throw your disgusting clothes in the dryer for likely the first time ever why don’t we try for, ‘Gee, thank you, Buffy, that’d be swell’?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’ll behave.” While she leaned over and unlocked the cuffs, he muttered, “Not that it isn’t flattering, but what do you think I’m going to do? Talk you to death?”

She nudged the wrist and ankle restraints open and stepped back, picking up her bottle of holy water and twisting off the top. “Okay. Now with the strip.”

Spike couldn’t help smiling. The slayer was so concerned over his nefarious self that she was going to force herself to watch him get undressed. He pulled off his t-shirt as he stood, throwing it down with a wet smack. “Be sure and get a good look, luv; you won’t get this chance again.” He caressed his stomach with one palm while he flicked the buttons on his fly open.

“You’re disgusting. And you’re not getting those off with your boots on, genius.”

“Wet denim’s confining. Need a little room to bend over.” He let his mouth hang open a little, tauntingly, and then bent to task, loosening his soaked laces and kicking off the boots.

Buffy’s knuckles went white on the holy water. This was Spike. Spike was of the bad. Words like ‘rippling’ and ‘taut’ should not be intruding on her consciousness. But he was… rippling. Gah. Riley had muscles! Angel! Angel had muscles! Big ones. Just… not quite so very hard, tight muscles that looked like your fingers would bump so smoothly over them if you…

He straightened, finished with his boots, and unceremoniously dropped his pants.

Buffy momentarily lost the ability to think. He kicked the jeans over the edge of the tub and then stretched. Arms over his head, then across his chest, pressing the triceps. He swung his arms and twisted at the waist. “God, I’m beginning to be shaped like this tub,” he complained.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

He turned his head toward her, body in profile, hands clasped behind his head. “Gonna catch flies like that, Slayer.”

“Catch huh?” Buffy’s brain woke up again and she blushed. She brandished the water bottle. “Down. Back down… like you were. With the chains. And… and… Hands! In front!” She gestured toward her own crotch.

He tilted his head from side to side. “Can’t blame a bloke for getting a bit of stretch in.” He languidly sat himself down, making no move to cover his genitalia.

Buffy made him put the cuffs on his own ankles. It looked… decidedly different to have the dark metal encircling bare skin. She snapped the wrist cuffs while trying not to look at ANYTHING. She could tell Spike was feeling smug, and that his smug was 100% BuffyBlush powered.

She threw a towel at his lap. “Dry yourself off,” she said. “I’ll be back with your clothes.

The jeans weighed a ton, sopping wet. Still she held them with thumb and forefinger only, as she did his t-shirt in the other hand. At least there wasn’t any worry about separating lights from darks. She tossed them together into Giles’ dryer.

Then she called Willow.

Fifteen minutes later Willow was seated on Giles’ sofa, trying to look attentive, supportive, and not squicked.

“And what was with the no underwear?” Buffy paced, gesturing. “And those jeans! They’re skin-tight. Who can peel out of wet, skin-tight jeans that fast? Is that a skill? I so don’t want to think about why you’d practice that. Ugh. And then he just stands there, all… dangly…”

Willow grimaced. “Um… Buffy, it sounds horrible and all, but why did you need me?”

Buffy turned to her friend, her eyes wide and pleading.

Willow blanched. “Oh,” she said.

“Please, Willow? All you have to do is unlock the cuffs and throw the clothes at him. Then I don’t have to see scary naked vampire again.”

“But I do!”

“Friends do these kinds of things for each other.”

Ominously, the dryer buzzed.

Willow bit her lip. “Why not wait and make Giles do it? He’s a guy, after all, and has all the, um, guy parts.”

Spike sat, naked, listening to this exchange and wondering if his ass was, in fact, now horseshoe-shaped thanks to hours pressed against cold ceramic. It had certainly gone numb.

A body could go numb mighty fast when it had no heat generation of its own. He had to get out of this bathtub. Operation “annoy Giles into kicking the vamp out” wasn’t working.

Giles came home to a folded pile of black clothing being presented by a vampire slayer with a wide, fake smile. “Oh dear lord,” he said, breaking his internal vow NOT to go straight to the liquor cabinet.

He turned with whiskey in hand to see Buffy still holding the folded clothing, Willow still standing by her side, both of them looking at him pleadingly.

“He’s all naked,” Willow finally blurted. “And you have man parts…” she blushed and fluttered her hands.

Giles scowled. “You got him out of his clothes; why can’t you get him back into them?”

“Out was easier,” Buffy said. She shrugged. “Just… unlock him and toss the clothes at him.”

Giles grabbed the t-shirt and jeans from Buffy with a muttered “bloody hell” and added a few more words about “not a vampire nursemaid” as he drained his drink and marched toward the bathroom.

He set the glass down and opened the bathroom door to see, yes, a very naked Spike looking up from a waterless bath with an expression of weary resignation. The vampire was, quite literally, stripped of his armor. Giles tossed the bundle of clothes into the tub. “I’ve had it. It would be far easier to kill you now and rinse the dust down the drain than continue this idiotic game. You don’t have information. You’re useless.”

Giles grabbed Spike’s forearm and yanked his wrists hard against the side of the tub for his convenience as he unlocked the manacles. Spike blinked a little at the violence of his actions. “Then let me out of here. Rupert, I’m not going to hurt anyone. I bleedin’ can’t.”

Giles finished unlocking Spike’s bindings and stood with a huff of disgust. “Your current helplessness doesn’t excuse anything. You are a demon and it is our sacred duty to eradicate you.”

“Let me go! I can’t defend myself; your job’d be done for you. Or… Christ! Give me over to one of the Scoobies. I’m sure they have furniture they can tie me too that’s more comfortable than this.” Spike kicked the side of the tub ruefully as he stood to put on his jeans.

“You aren’t my guest, Spike, or a pet to be handed among family. You are our prisoner, whose continued existence is solely due to this increasingly unlikely possibility that he may prove useful.”

Spike paused in the act of fastening his fly. He peered at Giles. “Feeling less than vital, old Rupes? Don’t think my grousing would get to a man who wasn’t a glorified den mother.”

Willow jumped at the sound of a body falling in the bathtub. Buffy leapt to investigate.

Spike was pulling himself up with one hand on the back of the tub, the other hand rubbing a smudge of blood from his lip.

“Finish getting dressed,” Giles said, his voice completely calm now. He turned and started, not having noticed Buffy’s entrance. He sighed. “He’s covered now. I trust you can handle the rest.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows as Giles sidled past her.

Spike licked the blood from his thumb and felt the small split in his lip again, just to make sure there wasn’t more. “Takes a mighty big man to hit a bloke can’t hit back,” he said.

“Shut up, Spike.”

He stood, still in nothing but his jeans. “I want out of here, Slayer. I’m not spending another moment in this god-forsaken TUB.”

“You should have thought of that before you broke Giles’ dinning chairs.” Buffy tried to keep her eyes from the smooth expanse of skin between the top button of Spike’s jeans and the unused button-hole. She was NOT thinking of the nice contrast between that pale skin and the rough denim, nor was she wondering what it would feel like to slide her hand along that skin and into that denim. No. Not at all.

Spike frowned as the slayer’s eyelids fluttered and twitched. What was up with her? “I’m not talking about out of the bathroom. I want out of this house. You want to keep me hostage? There’s other places. I’m not spending another min… slayer? Eyes up here?”

“Hm? Wha?” She blinked.

A slow smile spread across Spike’s face. “Well if that’s what you’re interested in, luv, why didn’t you say so? Could make life more comfortable for both of us.” He moved his hips subtly. “’Cept of course you’re a bleedin’ harpy. I’d sooner shag old Rupes.”

When Buffy, after a few blinks and gapes, finally figured out what he had just said, her fist hit precisely where Giles’ had, only this time Spike’s head cracked a wall tile as he hit.

“Bitch!” He scrambled to regain his footing, eyes shooting fire and fists clenched at his sides.

He was… all clenchy. Little quivers of anger along his arms. Buffy made a silent thank-you to the powers that be that very few of her opponents fought her with no shirts on. The distraction would have killed her. She forced her eyes to meet his. “You have fourteen seconds to get your shirt on, or I chain you up without it.”

He spent another second quivering for action, ready to rip her head off if only he could, then, stiffly, he bent and snatched his shirt from the floor. “Wouldn’t want to give you the satisfaction,” he said.

Never before had a t-shirt been pulled on with more anger. Buffy was amazed the cotton withstood it. She pushed him down before he could reach for his boots. He wasn’t going to need them, anyway.

“Lovely bedside manner, Nurse Rachet,” he muttered as she snapped the cuffs on as quickly as she could.

“Oo! You… you…”

“Sexy, powerful, manly vamp?”

Buffy slammed the door behind her. Giles and Willow looked up from the sofa. Giles took off his glasses. “Buffy… Willow had a promising idea.”

“Truth spell,” Willow said, smiling brightly. “Wam, bam, tell-us-all-you-know-vamp. No more pesky undead English patient.”

“Then PLEASE tell me we make with the dust?” Buffy mimed staking.

Giles cleaned his glasses and replaced them. “It wouldn’t change the moral dilemma of killing a defenseless creature.”

“Oh, he’s defense-y, Giles. He’s just defense-y with his mouth.”

Willow rolled her lips inward. “Vampire, Buff. They’re kinda always with the mouth. Um…” she stood. “I’ll go get supplies for that spell.”

“And I’ll move Spike to the sitting room so we can perform the spell. We’ll meet around six?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, part two of the season four "goes worse for Spike" fic - "Being of Use" 
> 
> This takes place after "Something Blue", through "Hush" and has bits of "Doomed".

One minute he hated her with all his heart, the next he was kneeling at her feet, begging her to accept his hand in marriage. And then there was indiscriminate snogging – showering all his best skills and tender loving care on an ungrateful slayer - and then the horrid exposure to the depravity of Buffy’s taste in music and flowers. “Wind Beneath My Wings!” Had society not evolved beyond that?

In the end, he would have thought this would have, at least, earned him some sympathy; he was as much a victim as any of them! And that’s what happens when amateurs play around with magic. You’d think they’d realize if it were safe, everyone would have a soddin’ broomstick to ride.

But no, he was left, chained up again – though in a chair this time, with nothing to do but rehearse his indignant rants and watch Giles fix himself some tea.

“I don’t suppose you’re gonna offer me a cuppa?” He eyed the watcher.

“No, not in a million years, and no. You wouldn’t appreciate it.”

“I’m dead, Rupert, not American.”

Giles set his cup and saucer on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa, looking at Spike tied across from him. “I’ve asked the children to meet here tonight and when they get here I’m going to announce that YOU are going home with one of them. I really don’t care which, so long as you don’t stay here.”

“Or, alternatively, you could let me the fuck go.”

Giles ignored the comment, taking a sip of his tea and leaning back in his chair. “You enjoy doling out painful truths, Spike, so here are a few: hurt any of the children, in any way, make them uncomfortable even, and I will make you suffer as you have never suffered before.”

“That’s not a truth, Rupert. It’s a threat. And seeing as how you’ve no idea how I’ve suffered before, it’s not one you can carry out. You wouldn’t have the balls to dish out the kind of pain I’ve taken for sport.”

Giles put down the teacup, then took off his glasses. “You want a painful truth, Spike? You are helpless. You are at our mercy, and no one is going to help you. So accept the threat as given and try to act your age.”

Spike was cowed to silence. Giles nodded as though he’d spoken an answer and went back to the kitchen to finish preparing for the upcoming meeting.

“For all you know,” Spike said to himself, trying to believe the words as they came out, “this chip’ll burn itself out in a week and I’ll be back. I’ll be back and hungry.”

“For all YOU know,” Giles shouted over his shoulder, “The bloody thing will fry your brain the next time it goes off.” Sighing to himself, he added, “Not that there’s much left to fry.”

That was the end of the argument, for now. Spike flexed his arms against the restraints. He could take a few insults. It wasn’t like it wouldn’t be an improvement to be anywhere but at the Watcher’s.

In fact, when the kids arrived and, after much arguing (which he watched with a wry smirk), it was decided that he would go to the Harris whelp’s for safe keeping, he was actually pleased. Harris had done little more than banter with him, and Spike actually liked banter. Giles un-cuffed him so he could stand up, then re-cuffed him and draped his coat over his shoulders.

“Right,” Spike wriggled his arms, getting the feel of the leather. Even with his wrists behind his back, it felt good to be in the coat again. “Can’t have the neighbors wondering what sort of bondage games are going on. Take me to your basement!”

And, with just a few more protestations and complaints, Spike headed off after Xander Harris, feeling certain that his life was about to look up.

Looking back, he should have made a run for it, cuffs or no.

***

Spike craned his head to take in the modest home while Xander fumbled with his keys at the basement entrance. “Aren’t your parents going to wonder why you’re bringing a chained man home?”

“Sneaking past my parents is like sneaking past a rock. A dead rock. Soaked in valium.” Xander wrenched the door open and stepped aside. “Spike, against my better judgment, I invite you in to my home. Buffy?”

Buffy had been trailing behind, one hand on a stake in her pocket – just in case. “We’re all done?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” Xander held the door. “Ladies first. Ladies who have the keys to the vampire?”

“Oh,” Buffy pouted.

Xander led Spike to a lounge chair. “Make yourself uncomfortable. Now begins vampire bondage II: this time it’s in Xander’s way.”

Spike shrugged. “You know you gits don’t have to keep tying me up. It’s not like I have anywhere to go. Helpless, remember? You’re my protection, pathetic as that is.”

“And let me tell you, it thrills me as much as it does you.” Xander worked Spike’s coat off as Buffy, affecting an air of one being forced to touch something icky, leaned in and unlocked the cuffs.

Spike sighed at the release and immediately rubbed his wrists, rolling the tension from his shoulders.

Then there was a loud THUMP overhead and muffled shouting. Spike raised an eyebrow.

Xander grimaced as the shouting got louder. “I better… check on that. Be right back. Buff, you can start the rope thing.”

Spike looked warily at the slayer, who was looking at the coiled rope, which Xander had helpfully procured and set at the ready, with distaste.

“You don’t have to do this,” Spike said. “It’s not like I couldn’t rip through that rope like paper.”

“No you couldn’t. And shut up, Spike,” Buffy said, wearily. She uncoiled the rope and regarded him.

With an eye roll, Spike settled back in the lounger, arms on the rests, shoulders wriggling for comfort. Buffy looped the rope across his chest and around the back of the chair. She frowned, trying to find the best way to make it actually secure.

Upstairs, Xander’s voice joined the shouting. There was another crash, this time with breaking glass. Buffy winced.

“I see all’s happy in the Harris home,” Spike said.

“Shut up, Spike.” Buffy tied the rope off behind the barcalounger and looked down at the vampire. Absently, she touched the side of his face.

He jerked away from her. “Do you mind?”

“Yes.” She walked around to his front, arms crossed. “I mind, Spike. I mind having to look after poor little vamp lost when I have school and a very-nearly boyfriend.”

“I bet. You mind touching my cheek about as much as you did last night, DEAR.”

“When we do find this initiative, without your help, you’re going to be no more use and I am going to use the bluntest stake I can find.”

“I’d be more help if you lot untied me! I can find the place. I told you.”

“Like we’re going to just let you walk away.”

“For the love of… Slayer, you aren’t going to kill me, and you aren’t going to let me go. You’re setting up this whole annoying situation for the both of us. I said I could help. It’s in my best interest to help. I want those government losers found more than you do. But you’re so thick. You have an actual creature of the night at your disposal and all you’re going to… Slayer?” He frowned, noticing she was staring at his chest. “Eyes? Remember we had this discussion before?”

She blinked at him, shocked.

“Yeah, I know I’ve got a hard body, luv, but some folks do manage to tear themselves away from it.”

Buffy slapped him this time, hard. “I was not!”

“Right. Because resorting to violence doesn’t mean you’ve run out of excuses. Ease up, Slayer. I know you liked snoggin’ me just yesterday. And we both know it didn’t start there.”

She smacked him again, but he kept smiling, laughing. She knelt on his lap and grabbed the back of the chair for support and wailed on him again and again.

It took Xander’s third repeat of “Buffy?” for her to realize he was standing at the foot of the stairs.

Xander shifted his feet. “Like upstairs like downstairs,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“He was hitting on me!” Buffy hurriedly scrambled off Spike’s lap.

“Right,” Spike snorted, then winced at the movement. “Because I was the one doing the hitting, wasn’t I?” He moved his head slowly, opening and closing his mouth to feel the damage to his jaw and nose.

“Spike, shut up,” Xander said. He took Buffy by the elbow and led her to the back steps.

Sitting on the gritty concrete steps that led up from the basement to the driveway, Xander put his arm around Buffy’s shoulders. “You can’t let him get to you, Buff. Remember he can’t hurt you. He’s lashing out the only way he can. That should remind you how pathetic he is, not make you fall to his level.”

Buffy sniffled and wiped her eyes. “I just… I don’t want to deal with him. Or see his smug little face anymore. I’m still trying to convince Riley I was only joking about being engaged. What if I never have a normal relationship again, and it’s all Spike’s fault?”

Xander chuckled. “That’s giving evil dead too much credit. I don’t know about normal relationships, Buff, but if anyone can pull it off, you can. This Riley guy sounds… he sounds nice.”

Buffy smiled, and leaned into her friend’s hug. “Thanks, Xander. Thanks for everything.”

Xander relaxed into the hug. He'd kept his right side away from her all this time, and now she couldn't see it if she tried. "Anything for you, you know that," he said, and helped her to her feet.

In the basement, Spike had heard every word. (It was that or concentrate on the drunken mutterings upstairs.) He shook his head and, with a grunt, worked his way out of the itchy damn ropes. That would teach them to tie up a vampire with natural hemp. Just enough give in the soft chair and the rope to wriggle free. He scooted forward to the edge of the lounger and tentatively felt his face. Some squelching, some blood, and he had his nose straightened so it would heal right. It stung, and throbbed with that bigger-than-the-rest-of-your-head feeling, but he was used to the occasional broken nose.

Xander came back in and gaped for a moment at the pooled ropes and the now standing vampire.

“I might be de-clawed, but I can still beat inanimate objects,” Spike said, kicking the rope out of his way. “Besides it’s pointless. And bloody insulting.”

Xander crossed the room in three paces. He saw a flash of red, and the vampire was on the ground, looking up at him in disbelief, and Xander’s knuckles hurt.

“Buffy’s my friend,” Xander said, trying to cover up his own panic at the sudden violence. “You keep your mind games to yourself, understand? Or I will make sure you never leave this house.”

Spike jumped to his feet. “Oi! She was the one looking at me like I was a tall glass of water. I didn’t say anything but…”

“But what?” Xander pushed Spike’s chest. “Don’t talk back.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. He noticed a darkening bruise on Xander’s cheek. “So that’s it,” he said.

Xander flushed, then his jaw tightened. He pushed harder, sending Spike stumbling backward.

Spike smirked. “You didn’t have a government chip in your head keeping you from fighting back, you know.”

“Shut up, Spike.”

“Or what? You’ll beat on someone who can’t hit back? Won’t THAT make you feel all manly.”

Xander clenched his fist. “No,” he said. And swung. “But I think I owe you a few.” He stepped over the downed vampire. “Remember Angel handing me to you like a snack?” He punched. “Or when you knocked me out and used me to get Willow to make a spell for you?” He punched twice. “And Cordy… and…” He pulled Spike up by his shirt and shook him.

Spike stared at Xander in shock. Xander felt himself shaking. He threw the vampire down and took a step back, looking at his own hands.

“What’s the matter?” Spike pulled himself up on one elbow and wiped the blood from his lip. “Afraid the old man’ll hear you takin’ after him?” Emboldened by Xander’s look of fear, Spike used the edge of the bed to lever himself onto his knees. “Maybe I should shout a bit and get the old rat-bastard down here so he can see?”

“Go ahead. He isn’t Mr. Restraint and Shame around company, and he just LOVES men who dye their hair.”

Spike licked his lips. “But you… you ARE ashamed, aren’t you, Harris? You’re reeking of it. I’d help you out, mate, but the only cure I know involves biting.”

Xander raised his fist. The vampire didn’t even blink. He let it fall. He took another step back. “I hate to break it to you, oh impotent one, but you're not the big bad anymore, you're not even the kind of naughty.” Spike winced. “You're nothing but a waste of space - my space! And as much as I always got a big laugh watching Buffy kick your shiny white bum, as much as I know I can give you a little bum-kicking myself right now, I'm here to tell you something. You're not even worth it. I'm out of here.”

And Spike lay, still shocked, as Xander stormed out of the door.

He should have followed him out – left and not looked back. Instead he lay on the floor a while, recovering, and considered it a momentary lapse on the boy’s part; it’s not every day you get beat down while the girl you’re crazy over and a vampire you hate listen in. He found the sink and he washed the excess blood off. He re-set his nose and searched Xander’s room for snacks.

When Xander returned, Spike had made himself at home, evidenced by the snack food bags open and spilling out on the sofa-bed. Spike himself was sitting back – booted feet on top of Xander’s comic books! – remote in hand, watching the television.

Xander shouted, but no words came out of his mouth. Spike, oblivious, continued to watch as dramatic music built on the tinny speakers.

Xander stepped in front of the television. Spike scowled and his mouth opened, mouthing, “Out of the way!” but no sound came out.

“What is this?” Xander tried to say. He gestured at the snackfood.

Two fingers were raised in what he was pretty sure was some kind of insulting gesture. Xander picked up a bag of chips and threw them at the vampire, frustrated with the impotence of the action and the quiet rustle of chips falling. He tried to shout about his space, his room… but nothing came out.

He didn’t bother lip-reading the response. Plastic bags crinkled, flesh smacked against flesh, and on the television, voices laughed through the eerie silence.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm impatient, so I'm posting this today! I kinda like how it's turning out all naughty and bad.
> 
> Takes place between "Hush" and "Doomed", well, starting to creep into "Doomed".

Buffy let Xander pull her aside. “Why do I have to baby-sit the hostage? I have important things to do.”

“You’re the vampire slayer, he’s a vampire; I figure it’s a related duty.” His eyes were pleading. “It’s just a few hours. I’ve got to get away from him, Buff. He’s annoying my sanity away.”

Buffy bit her lip, looking out at the rest of the group, who were all enjoying post-day-of-silence conversations around Giles’ apartment. The last thing she wanted, after her awkward morning with Riley, was time with Spike.

“Please? Anya’s been wanting to see this movie for weeks.”

“Why can’t you just leave him alone? Tie him up. I mean, isn’t he alone there now?”

Xander’s gaze shifted anxiously. “Buff… every minute he’s there unguarded it’s another minute more likely he’ll make a noise or, hell, my very respecting-of-privacy family will just barge in and find him tied up there.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

Xander held his hands together and mouthed “thank you!”

***

Buffy’s first thought on letting herself in to Xander’s place was that Spike had flown the coop. It was dark and quiet and nothing was moving. She flicked on the lights, though, and then she saw him, standing by the back window, his hands over his head, cuffed to a pipe that ran along the ceiling. He held perfectly still, as though unsure he’d been seen yet and wanting it to stay that way, but his eyes were on her.

“Spike,” she said, and closed and locked the door. “Xander’s not coming home for a while and he asked me to… god, why am I even telling you?” She walked to Xander’s table and looked through the piles of junk for a fashion magazine – Anya sometimes left them lying around.

“Not going to unchain me, then?” There was an edge of desperation in his voice that he was obviously trying to play down.

She looked at him guiltily. He leaned forward, stretching his arms. His nose was still bruised from her assault on his face a few days ago. “Where does Xan keep the keys?”

“Work bench. Over there.” He nudged his chin in the proper direction. “Top drawer in the toolbox. Hurry, slayer, this pipe’s hot and it’s baking me.”

He strained forward, she now saw, his wrists cutting in to the front of the cuffs to stay away from the pipe. His expression was pitiable. She retrieved the key and brought it to him.

There was no sweat on him. Did vampires not sweat? She tried to remember if Angel had. She ran her hand down his twisted bicep. The skin was warm, almost hot.

Spike curled away from her. “So that’s how it is, then,” he said.

“How what is? Spike, you’re a drama queen.”

“Are you going to unlock the cuffs or not? Don’t play.”

“I’m not ‘playing’.” Buffy held the key back. “I don’t play. I was going to be nice Buffy and now you’re all accuse-y.”

He glared at her. She held the key farther away. He closed his eyes tightly. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Not accusing. Nice slayer. Wouldn’t harm a fly.”

She touched his stomach again. She just liked how it looked, stretched long. His shirt was as taut as a sail full of wind, pulling up from his waist. This time, he didn’t move; even his face held still. She felt the muscles of his abdomen, up and down.

Slowly, she worked his shirt out of his jeans. He didn’t move. She slid her hand up under it and felt those same muscles, tight and long. She bit her lip. She should say something. HE should say something. Was this wrong? She liked the way he felt, the way it felt to stroke his stomach, up and down. She almost got lost in it, kinda hypnotic, running her fingers over smooth, cool flesh.

Finally he said, “Slayer… love. Please let me down. Been up here all day. I’ll do anything you want.”

Buffy felt a cold lump fall in her gut. She stepped back. “I don’t want you to do anything, Spike. I want to leave you up there and read a magazine until Xander gets back.”

“No… come on. You can keep touching… touch whatever you like. I’ll hold still for you. But please let me down.”

His eyes were still squeezed shut. Buffy felt her hand tremble around the tiny handcuff key. “I think I need a chair to reach,” she said.

He sagged a little, and his eyes opened, but she couldn’t read his expression as he watched her drag an end table over and climb onto it to reach his wrists on the pipe. “Ow!” she said. The cuffs were very hot to the touch. She had to gingerly poke them with her fingernails to get the lock to line up with the key – touching the metal with her skin was not happening. She picked up the edge of her sleeve when fingernail-tips just weren’t enough.

Spike practically fell forward when the cuffs clicked open.

The handcuffs fell on the floor. Buffy left them there, concentrating on climbing down from the little end table without her skirt riding up.

Spike was blowing on the backs of his hands. He stopped when she approached, looking warily at her over his knuckles like a cat caught licking its paws.

“For an evil, soulless killer, you can be a big baby,” she said.

“Second degree burns hurt, Slayer. And I happen to be flammable.”

“Those are hardly second degree.” She grabbed his wrist. He winced. The skin was puffy and red along the backs of his hands and halfway up his forearms, where the puffiness mottled with white. What was that they’d learned about second and first degree burns in Mrs. Wilson’s health class? She couldn’t remember, but she was sure THIS was a first-degree burn.

She noticed that he was holding still, watching her manipulate his arm. “I’m not going to pounce on you, Spike, so you can quit looking like that.”

He blinked, and smiled a nervous smile. “Right. I knew that.” He pulled his arm gently from her grip and backed away a few paces. “You know a bloke’ll say anything when he’s got a hot pipe pressed against him, yeah?”

“Are you… afraid of me?” Buffy frowned.

“Never.” Spike turned and lowered his face to leer at her with confidence. “It’s bad enough, bein’ at Harris’ beck and call, when I can smell the weakness, the prey that is Xander F’n Harris. But I can smell your power, feel the Slayer in you, and it doesn’t make me scared. It makes me hungry.”

“EW. Lame,” Buffy said. She went and sat on the couch, resuming her search for magazines.

Spike’s shoulders fell and his face crumpled. He walked stiffly to the bed and lay down. “Not even worth a snappy come-back, am I?”

“Nope,” Buffy said. He heard the flipping of pages.

He laid his hands on his chest, forcing the fingers to uncurl, letting the burnt sides sit against the air and throb. He’d lied; he was afraid. Beginning to fear anything that felt like food. Plus, Harris hadn’t fed him and the hunger was making the fear into sickness. He closed his eyes and just tried to concentrate on feeling his hands heal.

Buffy looked up suddenly from an article on boots, startled by a sound, but not sure what it had been. She scanned the room, and her eyes fell on Spike’s still form on the bed. Gah. He looked creepy when he was asleep, still as a corpse.

That was the sound – she had heard him stop breathing. She looked down at the page and somehow wasn’t as interested in wide verses tall heels and tossed the magazine aside. The silence was creepy. She got up and walked to the bed. She watched him for a while until she realized she was waiting to see him take a breath, to catch him for a faker.

She sat down next to him and sighed, looking around at the patheticness of her day. “I talked with Riley this morning. Riley: Mr. Supposed-to-be-Normal, Mr. Buffy’s-chance-at-happiness. Mr. I-work-for-secret-government-operations.” She drew her legs up and rested her cheek on her knees. “Am I doomed to spend all my dating years in the company of the undead?”

Spike didn’t answer – which was precisely why she was telling him these things. She reached for him; let her fingers glide over that coveted stomach. It was just another example of the WRONG that was her life that she was thinking about sitting in his lap, feeling those muscles against her thigh while he made cutey-faces at her.

She pulled the shirt up, looked at the contrast, the very real skin of him, so still against denim and black cotton. She ran her hand over it, felt the downy hairs, the room-temperature soft skin. Yup. Wrong. Still, there was nothing stopping her from having a peek… she crawled up to his waist. He wore a thick leather belt, black of course, with a skull-and-flames buckle. Tres cheesey. She flipped it open and it fell back with a tink of metal on metal. It was a solid, familiar sound that made her stop and question again if she was somehow doing something wrong.

She pulled the first button open on his fly and the others followed easily with a tug of the denim.

His stomach rose and fell. “Slayer? What are you…?”

His eyes narrowed with understanding. His head fell back on the pillow.

“Eew. No.” Buffy said, retracting her hand from his abdomen.

“Gonna say you weren’t about to pull my todger?”

“Eeew!” Buffy hadn’t known exactly what she was objecting to in his silent expression before, now she did. “And… shut up, Spike! It’s not like you’re… real.” She grimaced.

“Too right. Not real,” he said, looking at the ceiling.

Something snapped in Buffy. She grabbed his wrists and pressed them to the mattress on either side of his head. He arched upward in pain, gasping.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

He writhed in her grasp. The cotton sheet felt like concrete on his burnt skin. Buffy pushed harder, trying to dig him in to the mattress with her arms and her hips. “I don’t like you. I don’t want you. I want a normal. Living. Boyfriend.”

She pressed into him to punctuate her words. He kept his eyes on the ceiling. “That’s right, work it out of your system, Slayer,” he said. It only made her angrier.

Which didn’t explain why she pressed her mouth to his, or why his unresisting lips, falling open for her, made her press against him harder. Her skirt was riding up all around her waist now, and her panties rubbing painfully against his open fly. Still she ground herself against him, working toward a completion more driven by anger than lust.

Afterwards she stared down at him, righting her skirt. Clear plasma shone sticky on his forearms, one of which was across his eyes. “You tell NO ONE about this,” she said, trembling with fear.

“Who’ve I got to tell?” was his tired reply.

***

It was two days after the Incident with the Gentlemen, as everyone was calling it, when Xander asked Willow to come over.

Spike stood over the washer. Willow frowned at him. His back was to the room and he turned away from her as she approached. “What are you doing?” she finally asked.

“What’s it look like I’m doing? The sodding laundry.”

“It works without watching,” Willow offered. “I mean… you know what they say about pots and boiling.”

“Hey Wills,” Xander drew her back toward the couch. “It’s Spike I wanted to talk to you about, actually. But don’t interrupt the laundry ritual. It takes all the brain cells he’s got to keep from shrinking everything. Again.”

Willow frowned at Spike. He was leaning forward, now, his hands propped up on the washer. He glanced just far enough to one side that she saw a brown bruise circling his cheek. “Um… did he have more to say about the Initiative?”

“No, but he wrecked my coffee table.” He pointed against the wall, where a pile of wood scraps sat. “And do you want to know how?”

“Um… with his big vampire fists and macho disregard for wood?”

“No. He was trying to off himself. He propped a stake up with some books and threw himself on it from the bed. AND, like the champ he is, missed.”

Not turning to face them, Spike said, “If you didn’t lock me in I could have just taken a walk and your precious table wouldn’t suffer.”

“Shut up, Spike.” Xander held his head. “You see my problem?”

“Yes. No. What am I supposed to do? Um… did he mean taking a walk as in it’s sunny out and vamp go poof?”

“Yes, I think that’s what he meant. Can you magic him so he won’t do that? Not that I’m pro-Spike, but Buffy doesn’t want him dust just yet, and playing vampire whisperer isn’t thrilling me.”

“I could make a happy spell?” Willow’s eyes brightened at the idea. “I was working with… uh… I mean on some spells the other night and there was a definite endorphin rush. I think magic might be naturally anti-depressive!”

The washer buzzed and its door slammed. Spike turned. “Naturally? Magic? Are you completely daft, or did our little trip down Engage-Spike-to-the-slayer Lane teach you nothing?”

Willow gasped at his face; the brown bruise she’d noticed on his cheek had friends. Red and purple friends all along the other side of his face and on his neck descending down into the collar of his shirt. Willow thought about nooses and vampires not really doing the dying-by-asphyxiation thing and that got her wondering if he severed his spine would he be paralyzed, undead?

“Spike, we’re talking,” Xander said, looking at the empty air directly in front of him.

To Willow’s surprise, Spike turned back to the washer with only a quiet, “Yeah, right.”

“Wow, he must really be depressed,” Willow leaned against Xander. “Guess killing people meant a lot to him.”

“He’s a vampire, Will. Without the grr and bite act, he’s pretty much useless.”

“Well, I can research spells and all, but what do we do in the meantime? He looks like he tried more than once.”

“Keep an eye on him, I guess,” Xander said, falling back as if exhausted. “I don’t suppose you could, Will? Just for a little bit?”

“But I have things! Witch things!”

“’S okay,” Spike slammed the dryer door shut and pressed the start button. He turned to face them. “Xander can just chain me up on the hot water pipe again. That was comfy.”

Xander and Spike exchanged chilling glares.

Willow stood. “Oh… okay. Spike, come with me. But no funny business, mister!”

Spike strolled up to the door as though uninterested either way. He stopped and held his wrists out.

Willow raised an eyebrow.

“Cuffs,” Xander said. “We don’t let vampires run around loose. Even fangless ones.”

Willow considered the chains Xander held out to her for a moment. “Yeah… I guess.” She stepped back and gestured at the vampire.

Xander put the cuffs on him.

Spike followed Willow out the door and up the steps from the basement with creepy silence. He didn’t even make normal walking noise. She had to keep checking over her shoulder that he was there.

Then, the one time she WASN’T checking over her shoulder, he said, “I need blood.”

Willow jumped. “Eep!” She turned and glared. “Don’t startle me like that.”

“Food. I need something to eat. Xander said he’d give me some blood after the laundry was done.”

Willow felt suddenly like the babysitter who had been left with an unexpected duty. “I don’t have any blood ON ME,” she said.

His response was an exasperated sigh, and she thought she could HEAR his eyes roll.

“We’re going to the library,” Willow said. “We can stop by the butcher’s on the way.” How could he make her feel defensive and anxious when HE was the one with the handcuffs and the not-able-to-hurt-anyone thing? “But you really have to behave yourself. If I don’t find this ‘word of valios’ the world could end in a big, firey way.”

“What, we’re doomed, then?”

“Oh yeah. Good chance of us all dying by sunrise.”

“You mean it?” He asked, earnestly, “You aren’t just saying that to cheer me up?”

And Willow was once again certain that she did NOT understand vampires.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay, impatience wins. (Am I predictable or what?)
> 
> This takes place after "Doomed" and leading in to "A New Man" - watch for the pun at the end. hee hee.
> 
> Everyone who guessed "Willow" in the "Which female Buffyverse character will rescue Spike" pool... sorry, please try again.

Willow forgot the butcher’s. Spike’s stomach growled almost loud enough for distracted humans to hear, but he kept his lips shut. The last thing he wanted was to antagonize the witch – she was a bit of all right, he was sure, and would come through for him when sundry apocalypses were avoided. After a fruitless search of the library, Willow took Spike with her to the ruin of Sunnydale High.

Buffy met them in a burned-out corridor. “Be careful, you guys, the place doesn't look too stable.”

Spike smiled and inhaled the charcoal aroma. “Fine by me. Hope we all go under.”

Buffy frowned. “Why is he even here? It's not like he can fight!”

Willow shrugged. “If we leave him alone, he'll stake himself.”

“And that's bad because...? Fine. Whatever. Just keep him out of the way. I do *not* have time for this.”

Helpless, but not really caring anymore – would they even bother feeding him? How long would it take a vamp to starve to death? Spike followed them into the old library, where a group of demons were performing a ritual.

Willow grabbed a bag of bones and threw it at him. “Protect that!”

“Oh, great,” he said, clutching the bag in his bound hands. What was he supposed to do? A demon rushed him; he stepped out of the way. Another rushed him - less luck. Spike bent and twisted and ducked as much as he could, but he was getting a beating.

Tired of putting up with it, Spike roared a battle cry and hit the demon with both fists. Then he hurriedly clutched his head, bracing for the fire in his brain.

“No pain!” He hit the demon again. “I can hurt a demon!” With a sneer of contempt, he tore the handcuffs in half and started to wail on his prey in true form. “That's right. I'm back. And I'm a BLOODY ANIMAL! Yeah!”

Before he knew what was what, the demons were all gone and he was taking the deepest, most satisfying breaths he had in days. And Willow and Buffy were glaring at him. “What? I was helping!”

So there was an earthquake and the demons going in the hole was BAD, and blah blah… Spike was practically dancing, bouncing on the balls of his feet, looking for something else to hit. Something not human. He led the way out of the library. Even running in to one of the commandos (who had a lame story about playing paintball) and being forced to affect a bad American accent didn’t put a damper on Spike’s mood. They burst out into the night, world (and Manchester United) once more safe, and for the first time since he’d woken up in that sodding white cell, Spike felt a sense of anticipation. There was a reason to live: he could hit things!

“Look who’s happyvamp!” Willow chided.

Buffy jogged to catch up with them. She ran in front of Spike and put out a hand to stop him. “Look who’s FREE vamp.”

“Hadda help, didn’t I?”

Buffy slapped him. “You almost got us all killed.”

“Buffy, this is great! Don’t you see? Spike can only hurt monsters. We get our very own vampire fighter! I mean, a fighter, who is a vampire, and I suppose also fights vampires. And hey! No biting!”

Buffy planted her fists on her hips and frowned at Willow. “So now we’re just letting him go? After everything? He has a free pass into our lives. He knows stuff about us!”

“Oh yeah, because the breakfast club secrets are going to rock the undead community,” Spike rolled his eyes. “Wot do you want, slayer? Thought you hated looking after poor little me.” He swaggered, arms out at his sides. “Well, turns out I’m not so toothless after all. So ta for the tender lovin’, I’ll be on my way.” He stepped lithely around the slayer in full swagger.

She spun and punched him in the nose.

He staggered back, hands clutched to his face.

“You aren’t going anywhere. You’re coming back with us.”

“Bloody hell! Do you have to go for the nose every. Single. Time?”

“Willow, can you do anything to secure him?”

“I can make pretty impressive puppy-dog eyes and I’m good with the pouting, but that’s about it.”

Spike lowered his hands, grimacing at the blood on them – blood he couldn’t afford to lose. “Damn it, Slayer, I said I’m not playing. You had your little bondage game. Don’t need your protection when I can beat back the nasties. Any human comes at me, I flash ‘im some fang.”

Buffy tossed her head to one side. “Willow has a spell that can find people, and my boyfriend works for the Initiative.”

“You wouldn’t. Even YOU…”

“Try me.”

Willow crept up to Buffy’s shoulder. “I have a spell?”

“Shush. Spike, are you coming, or do I drag you down?”

Spike squared his shoulders, fists at his sides. “Like to see you try!”

Buffy punched him hard enough this time that he sprawled onto the ground.

He scowled at her over his hands grasping his bloodied nose.

“Come on,” Willow held a hand out. “You don’t want cranky slayer.”

Spike trusted the witch, and he was a good judge of character – or so he thought, present situation with the slayer aside. So he let her help him to his feet and followed, keeping his comments to himself as he set his broken nose with his fingers. Again.

Not having anywhere else they could go just then, the girls took him back to their dorm room. Spike slumped against the foot of Willow’s bed, where Buffy handcuffed him to the frame – assuming it was the most sturdy thing in the pre-fab dorm room.

“Aren’t you supposed to attach that a little higher up,” Spike twisted around to watch her. “You’ll hardly get any use out of me down here.”

Buffy tightened the cuffs farther than necessary and pushed away from him with a disgusted grunt.

Spike laughed. “Glare any hotter and your eyes’ll melt. Poor slayer. Can’t even tell me off proper without cluing the witch in.”

“Cluing me in to what?” Willow looked up from rummaging through the bookshelf.

Buffy clenched her fists. “Don’t you have some kind of vampire-shutting-up spell?”

The bed bounced behind him as Willow plopped herself down. “Come on, Buffy. This’ll be fun. Kind of a… slaying sleepover!” She set ceramic dishes out on the bedspread. Minor movements made them clink together. She unrolled a baggie and sprinkled herbs.

Spike struggled to see behind him. “What’s she doing? Red?”

“I’d rather have Angel over, if I had to have a vampire in my room.” Buffy paced. “Or that girl I staked last night. Or heck, Mr. Trick. In fact, I can’t think of a single vampire I wouldn’t rather have here instead of Spike.”

Suddenly, Spike felt a shot of heat enter him at the top of his spine. It tingled over his skull and down his back, half tickling, half burning, confusing each nerve into separate torment.

“Oh,” said Willow. “That isn’t supposed to happen.”

Spike clenched his teeth, back arching as the bed shook with his efforts to free himself. He tried to talk but all that came out was a strangled cry at the back of his throat.

“Will?” Buffy hurried to press the vampire back and hold him down. “What’s going on?”

“It’s supposed to be a healing spell… a kind of mental calm and happy… but it’s supposed to be on living people, so maybe, being all un-living… um….” She broke a dish. Little sparks scattered around the room and Spike stopped straining against Buffy’s hold, falling against the bed again and gasping for unneeded breath.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Willow repeated, brushing burnt bits of herb from her bedspread.

Spike turned his face away from Buffy’s chest, which was all too close as she sat straddling his lap. “Red! No more mojo! How many bleedin’ ways do I got to say ‘no’?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t, Will,” Buffy said. “This isn’t exactly keeping him quiet so we can get some sleep.”

“Wait… here’s a simple charm. There’s no WAY this could fail… gaudete!”

And Spike again arched his back, this time gasping at a completely different sensation. Joy. With no prelude, his mind skipping gears like a stripped transmission into sudden giddiness.

He laughed as he realized he’d pressed himself firmly into Buffy, who was looking at him with confusion. He even knew that he shouldn’t be laughing, or finding this amusing in the least, but he did, and he was. “I’ll be quiet,” he said, giggling. “Christ. I’ll be quiet, you daft harlots. Just no more magic… ha! No more.”

Willow met Buffy’s eyes. “I think I aimed a little too happy on that one.”

“You think?” Buffy gaped. She felt Spike’s erection pressing against her and had to force herself to remember where she was, who she was, what she was doing. She scrambled to her feet, flushed red, and hurried to her side of the room. “I’m going to take a shower. See… see if you can get him back to normal?”

Willow nodded and flipped frantically through the pages of her spellbook.

Spike laughed quietly until tears streamed down his cheeks.

They met next evening in Giles’ living room, where the former watcher, obviously much put out, and not his most coordinated, cleared wineglasses and dishes from the tables. “You can’t just come here all hours. It’s hardly an emergency,” Giles said. “He still can’t harm humans, yes?”

“But he can be violent. The chip won’t stop him if he, I don’t know, rigs up traps or something.” Buffy glanced over at Spike with a grimace. “Not to give you ideas.”

Spike was tied to the desk chair this time, and his feet bound together to a desk leg, lest he use his nefarious power of rolling about the room. As it was, he was enjoying the ability to swing in a little half-moon arc that allowed him to level the same irritated smirk at all his enemies at once.

“The initiative must be planning on using these, uh, ‘hostiles’,” there was a crash as Giles stumbled through dropping dishes in the sink. “In some sort of soldiering capacity.” Giles leaned against the door-jamb between the kitchen and front room. “Disturbing, really.”

“Not that I needed an additional excuse,” Xander paced, “but I want him out of my basement.”

“Oh! Here’s another control spell,” Willow looked up from a dusty tome. “This book is just full of different spells to control people.”

Giles flipped the cover back and scowled. “It should. This is The Demonmaster’s Logoria. I thought I told you not to read that.”

Willow made a little whimper as Giles gathered the book up. “But… we need to keep Spike from killing himself.”

“Do we?” Xander and Buffy said in unison, and then frowned at each other.

“Not to ruin your pretend-he-isn’t-here game,” Spike said, rolling his chair to the left again, “But I’m past my crisis moment, yeah? Got a reason to live. Let me go, and I’ll go thin out the demon population for you. It’s a bloody win-win. Rupert, you can see that at least? YOU aren’t completely dense!”

Willow followed Giles to the bookshelf, snatching a smaller volume off it while he put the Logoria back. “I’ve seen references in five or six of these books to something called ‘the geas’.”

“Oh come on!” Spike growled, pushing his chair hard. “I’m not a monster, here!”

“Technically, you are.” Xander said. “‘Vampire’ equals monster. Look it up.”

“We’re all angsty over this geese thing,” Buffy said. “Is it bad?”

“The geas is an ancient binding spell, used to secure the loyalty of minions. Popular with your evil warlocks and witches bent on world domination.” Giles looked in confusion for the book Willow was holding. He took off his glasses. “The target is bound to the caster, drawn to obey them, unable to work against them in any way. I hardly think we need go that far.”

“Can we go as far as the Motel not-my-basement?” Xander asked.

“I think Spike can be convinced to be of use without binding him with dark magics.” Giles looked pointedly at Spike, setting his glasses back on his face. “Isn’t that right?”

Spike tilted his head and smiled insincerely. “Because all I want is to be of use.”

“Well, this is a good thing, right?” Buffy stood. “Do the spell, Will. What do you need?”

“Well,” Willow pressed the slim book in her hands against her lips.

Spike turned his chair to face Buffy. “Funny thing about the geas, Love. Target has to be willing.” He smirked.

Buffy scowled. “What use is that?”

“You’d be surprised,” Giles said, quietly, and plucked the book from Willow’s hands to place it back on the shelf. “Children, I don’t mind if you stay up all night arguing about this, but I have a hang… an appointment in the morning and I’m heading to bed.”

“I’m not taking him home. I’ve had enough of that,” Xander said. He looked exhausted.

“Yeah, an’ his laundry’s done,” Spike added.

“Spike can stay here tonight,” Giles said, “If he’s quiet. If you’re ALL quiet. Good night.”

Willow watched Xander and Buffy silently argue and sighed, “I’ll stay with him. I have reading to do anyway.”

“Thank you, Will.”

“Yeah, thanks. I can’t remember not having to sleep with evil dead hanging over me!”

When they’d left, Spike turned to face Willow, who was still standing at the book case. “You going to convince me to take that spell, Red?”

She took a step toward him. “They’d trust you, then, to be on your own. No more tying up!”

“I’m not going to be the slayer’s pet vampire. Not interested.”

“Well, you won’t. I mean,” she smiled sheepishly, “you’d kind of be MY pet vampire… not that I… want a pet vampire!”

“Not going to be anyone’s pet. I spent one hundred and twenty years as a free man. Not going to stop now.”

Looking a little excited, Willow came right up to the desk, placing her fingertips on it. “I’d only ask you not to hurt anyone, or yourself. Or, well, I mean, not to hurt anyone we didn’t ask you to hurt, I guess. I’d say demons in general, but you might go after Angel.”

“Please!”

Willow shrugged. “Or we could do something else. There are LOTS of spells about stopping people from doing things you don’t want or making them do things you do want…” she frowned. “I guess that sorta sums up the whole catalogue of spells.”

“Red, don’t want you experimenting on me. I had enough of that with the tin soldiers.”

Willow started moving books and other items onto the desk. “It’s not experimenting. It’s magic. I mean, most of these spells have been done for centuries!”

“I’ll take the geas,” Spike said quickly. Willow frowned, looking a little disappointed. “Just write it out, yeah? You have to make an oath of it anyway. You write out what you want me to say and if it’s decent, I’ll take it.”

It took a couple drafts. “I’m not swearing to be NICE.”

“But… I mean, there’s interpretation room…”

“I’m not nice. I’m an evil, rude vamp. And I intend to stay that way.”

Willow scratched out a sentence. “But you already disagreed to the ‘not trying to hurt feelings’ clause and the ‘starting fights’… I’m almost not asking ANYTHING.”

“Look, the standard form is ‘I swear to not act against your interests.’ That’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but then there’s YOUR interests. And no offense, but you’d act toward them, and I might find out later that those interests, while not against my interests, well, should be.”

“You really watched too much TV as a child,” Spike said.

The final draft was copied out clean as morning light filled the windows. It sure didn’t mesh with his imaginings of what taking a geas would be like. Girly handwriting in purple pen on lined notebook paper.

“You’re… um… supposed to kneel.” Willow sounded apologetic. She crumbled herbs into a cauldron on the table and picked up a stick wrapped with holy. “I’m supposed to have a symbol of power, and it says usually they use swords, but since I’m a witch, the wand is going to have to do.”

Spike heaved a sigh and took one knee in front of the witch. Holding the paper in one hand, he squinted and read, “Red… I mean,” he rolled his eyes, “Willow Rosenberg. I swear not to, by action or inaction, cause harm to befall you or your friends. (Bloody reads like the three laws of robotics.)” A heavy sigh and grimace. “I promise not to harm anyone’s goldfish or puppies. And I promise to help you with your apocalypse-aversion and bad-guy killing whenever necessary. This I swear, William the Bloody.” He looked up at Willow. “Did we HAVE to have the puppy clause?”

“I forgot – kittens too.”

“No, I’m not swearing to protect kittens.”

“Spike! What if I get a pet?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Kittens too. I swear; I won’t harm a kitten. Are we done, here?”

Willow stirred her cauldron and turned a page in her book. “I just have to accept. Um… I accept!” And then I set the symbol of power on the cauldron…”

There was a brief flash of pink light as Willow rested her wand across the top of the little boiling pot. “And… that’s it. Do you feel different?”

Spike stood, shaking out his limbs. “Feel like snapping the necks of a whole litter of kittens,” he muttered.

“Come on, be serious! Do you feel inclined to obey me? Do I maybe look bigger and more impressive?” She straightened her shoulders eagerly.

“You look like you, Red.” He walked to the window, scowling at it. “Sun’s up. Don’t suppose Rupes is going to be a barrel of laughs.”

“Spike? Come here.”

He walked up to her. “Yeah? What?”

Willow smiled. “Did you feel compelled to come here?”

“No. Was going to anyway.”

“Put the books back on the shelf. Oh – make sure they’re in alphabetical order. Giles gets so nasty when they aren’t.”

Spike sighed and picked up the largest book first. “I didn’t really expect it to work. ‘Cept maybe you can tell them it did? You know I’m harmless.” He paused to check the alphabetizing and shifted a few books around. “All this tying up is pointless.”

Willow stepped aside as Spike picked up the rest of the books on the desk. “Um, Spike? You’re obeying me.”

He stopped, half way to the bookshelf. He frowned. He threw the books down. Then, with a pained grimace, he bent and picked them back up. He slammed them hard into their places on the shelf, though he still stopped and checked their order. He turned to Willow with his arms crossed. “I thought this was supposed to be just what’s in the oath.”

“The oath is kinda ‘in addition to’ the general binding thing. But don’t worry! I mean… I’m not Miss Give Orders Gal. You’ll never know it’s there.”

“Until I have to kill a kitten.”

“Spike, I can’t conceive of a situation where killing a kitten would save the day.”

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” Spike sat down at the desk again, looking down at the discarded ropes. Was he freer with them on?

“God, I’m so tired. And Tara’s expecting me for breakfast! Oh! My sociology paper!” Willow picked up a backpack by the door. “Just… stay here do whatever Giles says until I get back?”

“Red! Wait! You can’t give a blanket command like…” Spike ran after her, stopped at the door by the bright sunlight, and also a strange urge to stay here.

Willow was already jogging around the corner and out of sight. Sighing, Spike closed the door.

A crash sounded overhead, and heavier footsteps than Spike would have expected tromped around. Rupert was going to be a real beast that morning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, did I say at the beginning of this that it'd be two, three parts? Yeaaaaah.
> 
> There will be at least one more part after this. But no more than two more, I think. I have other Spikeys to torture.
> 
> Warnings: we makes with the seks! At last at last! Rampant Riley cluelessness - forgive me Riley fans! I do love the farmboy, I do! Also, rushedly written and stuff, so do let me know of the typos.
> 
> Takes place during "A New Man" and into "The I in Team".

Spike turned from the front door to see a Fyarl demon standing at the foot of Rupert’s stairs. He blinked. “I’ve died and gone to heaven. It’s bloody demon home delivery!” He stretched and cracked his knuckles. “I’ve had a bit of a hell night, so let’s cut the foreplay, eh?”

The Fyarl then demanded, “What the bloody hell did you DO?”

Spike’s fist was poised inches from the demon’s visage when he paused. “Rupert?”

The demon stomped past him, taking a chunk out of the banister as he did so. “My best cauldron? The Demonmaster’s Logoria?” He turned from the table. “You! You did this to me!”

“Uh… no?” Spike squinted.

Wrong answer, apparently, because the Demon-that-was-Giles roared and rushed him. Spike dove for the stairs, claws at his back before he belatedly thought to try striking back.

His foot connected hard with the demon’s snout. Giles ripped the rest of the wooden stair-post free and brandished it over his head. “Stand still,” he roared.

And, with pure dread, Spike found himself unable to move.

“Rupert… Giles! Listen a bleedin’ sec! You know I don’t…” the wooden club slammed into him, shattering splinters off and throwing him hard into the steps. “It was Red… something must…”

“Be quiet,” Giles growled.

And he was.

If Giles was surprised at the vampire’s acquiescence, he didn’t pay it much mind. If anything, he was more enraged by that undeservedly innocent look on Spike’s face. He smashed the chunk of stair-rail into Spike’s side until it broke to pieces. Giles noted with detachment an odd pleasure in his heart at the sound of bones breaking and the feel of flesh deforming to his fists. But it was getting less fun… oh, Spike had fallen unconscious.

Yes, a little steam let off, and he could think again. Of course Spike hadn’t cast the spell. The idiot could barely stand magic. And these ingredients… “Good lord,” Giles reached up to remove glasses only to have clawed fingertips touch a stone-like cheek. He waved his hands uselessly. “She cast the geas!” He looked back at the ruined foot of the staircase, where one pale hand lay draped between broken spindles. “Well this doesn’t help me,” Giles muttered, and went to the front door, managing not to open it without ripping it off its hinges on the second try.

Spike groaned, quietly, as a bang and smash woke him from blessed oblivion. He felt a part of the stairs: all wooden and at right angles.

Clawed hands grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and pulled him up. “Why can’t anyone else understand me?” Giles’ blue eyes peered from the hellish red of the Fyarl’s face. He shook him. “Answer me!”

“Speakin’ Fyarl, git.”

“What? Explain yourself, you useless creature.” Another unnecessary shake. Spike’s head felt like an over-ripe melon about to burst.

“Said you’re speakin’ Fyarl. Someone’s turned you into a Fyarl demon. I speak Fyarl. Never thought I’d hear it with a British accent. ‘S kinda funny.”

Giles let Spike collapse back onto the steps. “Get up. You’re going to help me find the pillock who did this.”

“I can’t get up, you beat me into jelly,” Spike said, at the same time he found himself scrambling to his feet, gripping higher steps and what was left of the banister as though his life depended on it.

In a way, it did.

***

They’d all ended up at the crappy motel on the edge of town, and the slayer had nearly done for old Rupes, but she stopped just shy and it was all for the best.

Willow insisted that Spike come back to the dorm with them, where she solicitously bandaged and bound his wounds. “I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known…”

“You can’t have known, and you shouldn’t,” Spike growled. “This isn’t a toy you’ve got, witch, it’s my fuckin’ liberty.”

Buffy frowned, looking up from her text book. “Did what?”

Spike immediately laughed.

Willow raised her little chin defiantly. “I cast the geas.”

“She couldn’t tell. That’s bloody RICH.”

Buffy blinked at him. “Spike, pat your head!” Spike laughed again. She looked at Willow. “It doesn’t work?”

“It works.” Willow tightened the bandage she was working on a little harder than necessary. “I have to give the commands. Spike, pat your head.”

His expressive face quivered with outraged dignity, but he raised his hand and slowly and brought it down once on the crown of his head.

“Isn’t it neat?” Willow asked.

Buffy stood slowly, one hand lingering on her homework. “I thought he was helping Giles out of some kind of… demon solidarity.”

Spike let off a snort and rolled his eyes.

“But you could order him to obey someone else?”

“Yeah. I kinda told him to do whatever Giles said. I didn’t know Giles was going to be possessed! I thought… harmless Giles!”

Buffy shifted her weight onto one hip. “So you could tell him to obey me?”

“Well, yeah. Like, Spike, you’ll go patrolling with Buffy and follow her orders and kill monsters and stuff.”

“Goodie on me.” Spike winced as Willow dropped the arm she’d finished bandaging. “Look, you have to reverse the spell, Red. It’s no good. Don’t you get that?”

“Today was just a mistake,” Willow said. “It won’t happen like that again. You’ll see. You’ll hardly know the gaes is there.”

“How can I not? Red, you’re supposed to be the good guys.”

His voice was defeated, his eyes pleading. Willow looked away from him, uncomfortable.

He didn’t want her to order him to be quiet, so hit bit his tongue and settled himself down on the beanbag chair she’d set up for him, wrapped in a rose-patterned afghan, surrounded by the sweet, cola-and-sandalwood smell of Willow. A girlish smell. He was surrounded by young girls, and powerless in comparison to them. And he could no longer escape by killing himself.

***

Buffy led the way through the cemetery, not looking back at Spike as he followed. “Don’t get in my way,” she said. “And no comments on my hair, my fighting, or my snappy banter.”

“You gotta convince Red to end this. Buffy, you’re a white hat. You don’t keep slaves.”

“You aren’t a slave, Spike.”

“Don’t fool yourself, pet. I’m a dog-collar short of an S&M video.”

Buffy threw him a disgusted look. “Spike, walk into that tree.”

And… he was watching himself walk into a tree. He smacked the bark angrily at he rolled off the oak. “Cards on the table,” he said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“With what? All your zero money?”

“No.” He sauntered around into her path. “With my inexplicable, wicked charm.”

“Ugh,” Buffy said, and walked past him.

He wanted to stop her, but there was a tug on his mind not to get in her way. He threw his head back and groaned. Buffy was already several yards ahead. He jogged to catch up. “You want me,” he said. “Don’t be coy. You haven’t made a secret of it – to ME, anyway.” He leapt up on a gravestone in front of her, curling his arm casually around the shoulders of a blank-eyed angel. Buffy crossed her arms and glared up at him.

“And when I say I’ll make it worth your while,” Spike said, “I’m offering to do things to you with my tongue that’ll make your hair curl and your eyes pop. A hundred years of experience, luv.” He leaned toward her, “Doesn’t that make you curious?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Yeah, but you still want it.” He swung down from the statue to follow her deeper into the cemetery. He watched her ponytail bouncing back and forth as she marched purposefully forward, not looking at him. He sighed, and his voice came out softer, no trace of the previous lasciviousness. “I can’t live like this, Buffy. Please, just talk to her. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“I want you to shut up, Spike,” Buffy said. She twisted her stake in her hands and thought about how easy it would be to just rid herself of him once and for all. Stand here, Spike. Hold still. Thrust. Wham! No more Spike.

The idea didn’t appeal to her as much as she expected.

Thankfully, they finally came across some vampires. Looked like a whole family out to watch their newest member rise. Spike dove right into them without waiting for Buffy.

She twirled her stake and jumped in before all the good slaying was gone. “I was going to make some funny quips,” she said. “A pun or two. Ugh!” She was pushed over by a vamp trying to escape. She jumped to her feet and ran after him, grabbing the back of his hooded sweatshirt. “No appreciation for my efforts,” she said, and plunged the stake into his heart.

Some other monsters came, drawn by the fight, and it was a good scuffle. Buffy found herself sweaty, but happy, enjoying the cool night breeze as she turned to see if there were any more opponents to be had. Only Spike was there, shaking dust out of his coat.

Because it just seemed natural at the time, Buffy ran at him and pushed him against the nearest crypt. And it seemed natural that his mouth opened and responded to hers, and that he supported her weight as she jumped into his arms.

And perfectly natural when he broke from the kiss to gasp breathlessly, “Taking me up on my offer, then?”

A cold knot hit her stomach. She pushed him harder against the crypt. A shower of dust skated down the disturbed concrete wall. “No. Talking.”

He nodded. He kissed her. He sank to the ground with her. She gasped, not saying anything herself as his cool fingertips found their way inside her panties and hooked, pressing into wet folds.

She stared at the top of his head as he worked his way down her torso, kissing her shirt and nuzzling her skirt out of the way. Part of her was appalled, but it was the easiest thing in the world, just to lie there and see what happened… a part of her was pretending she had no idea what was going on.

Spike barely saved himself from getting his upper lip smashed by a bucking pelvic-bone. How he wanted to say something… chide, her, taunt her… he never realized how he depended on words, as weapons, as tools of arousal.

If only to arouse himself. He had a plan, now, but going through with it tasted like grit on his teeth. He didn’t know how to start, even, with this cold revulsion in his chest. He felt a fumbling virgin all over again, not able to remember the steps when he didn’t hear the music of his own passion. He dodged her wriggling and put his mouth to slow use, spreading her, lapping her up, passing again and again over her deeper opening, aware that a century of experience was one thing, but that had been nearly entirely one partner. He slipped his fingers and tried to find that spot that always drove Drusilla into keening, and after some exploring, yes, Buffy’s sweat-slick legs were pressing against him, trembling. He nipped gently at the hood of her clit, proud of the half-suppressed squeals and moans he was wringing from her. He laved the delicate bud and drew it into his mouth. Take my voice away, he thought, but I can still reach you. I’ll reach deeper into you than you thought existed, and then you’ll want to help me. You’ll have to.

Her every muscle drew up with tension and then exploded with quivering release, but he kept going… he had a mighty tall boast to live up to. She was looser, now, he had three fingers flexing and pumping and he wasn’t letting her clit go for all the world, pulling it more harshly now, then letting go to lave around it. She trembled and bucked and almost cried.

Only when her hands were pushing him away did he stop. He gasped – it never felt right, going so long without breathing. His lungs still burned, even if they were dead. He pulled his shirt up to wipe his face.

Buffy scrambled to her feet. Her hands fluttered over her skirt, her hair, picking out leaves, and she was looking intently over Spike’s head. “Oh god,” she said.

Spike turned to see Captain Cardboard himself, the leader of the commandos, walking casually through the gravestones with his big shock-gun slung under one arm. “Buffy!” he said. He trotted up to them and looked around. “I thought I heard a struggle.”

“There was a vampire,” Buffy said. She flicked stray hair out of her face and started searching the ground for her discarded stake. “Um… lots of vampires. All dust now. I mean, I’d show you the vampires but, you know, dust!”

Riley, oblivious to the strained cheer in Buffy’s voice, was frowning at Spike, who pretended to be very interested in the wall of the crypt, one hand up by his head as though on the way to smoothing his hair, blocking his face.

“I swear I’ve seen that guy before,” Riley said. “Are you, um, a friend of Buffy’s?”

Spike raised his eyebrows pointedly at Buffy.

Buffy finally found her lucky stake. “Huh? Oh, that’s just Spike. He… he slays.” She tried for a shrug. “Spike, go home.”

Spike crossed his arms and managed to raise his eyebrow even higher.

“What?”

Freed to talk by the implied order to respond, he almost sighed. “Home is where, love?”

Buffy grabbed his elbow and pulled him around the back of the crypt. “MY home,” she growled, and pushed him. “Go.”

Spike staggered away from her and shrugged his coat straight. He looked back to see Buffy setting her hands on the broad chest of the commando.

“Another friend of yours that knows all about HSTs?” Riley smiled down at Buffy.

“Acquaintance. Distant acquaintance. Barely shaking-hands friendly.”

“He called you ‘love’,” Riley said with mock jealousy, wrapping his arms around her.

“It’s a British thing. He’d call XANDER ‘love’.”

“Oh-kay,” Riley leaned down for a kiss. “I forgive you. Now come on, Walsh wants to see you.”

Spike buried his fists in his pockets and walked away.

He let his feet carry him to Revello Drive without thinking. The peaceful street with its manicured lawns was eerie. It put him in mind of Drusilla’s eyes when she had a particularly vivid vision. Had it been just a year since he had held her in his arms? Since he had come to the Slayer’s house all invited, all bad, behaving himself in exchange for a mutually beneficial pact which was supposed to be the end of his troubles.

He frowned up the walk of the familiar house. The lights were all off. “Bitch puts me in a wheelchair; I get out and help HER. That’s my problem; I’ve always been pathetic.” The cheap lock on the front door gave way to just a little force and he stepped into the Summers’ home. Wood varnish and lemon polish. The musty hint of art antiquities and cardboard. He inhaled deeply. It smelled like old memories.

The lights flicked on and Joyce Summers stood before him, in the entryway to the dinning room, a baseball bat raised over her shoulder. “Get out of my house!”

He raised his hands. “Woah. Joyce. ‘S me. Spike.”

She squinted at him and slowly lowered the bat. “Aren’t you…?”

“Still a vampire, yeah.”

She tilted her head, peering around him, “Is Buffy with you?”

“She asked me to meet her here. Didn’t want to wake you.”

Joyce sighed and let the bat drop all the way to her side. “So you broke the door?”

Spike looked sheepish and muttered an apology while Joyce walked past him to examine the damage. She sighed and attached the chain-lock. “Next time, knock. So, is it the end of days? Should I stay up and wait?”

“Nah. Just the usual. Go back to bed. I’ll wait here.”

Joyce frowned as the vampire sat himself on the couch, hands clasped behind his head with exaggerated nonchalance. He had a dark bruise under one eye and his hands looked… scratched. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, great!” He looked away from her very motherly glare. “This? Nothing. Just a beastie got in a couple swings. Nothing to worry about. Slayer doesn’t show, I’ll just take a kip here on the couch.”

“And Buffy’s all right?”

“Completely. Your girl can handle herself. Go on back to bed. I’ll break something if there’s cause for alarm, yeah?”

Joyce wondered whether to take that as a joke. She set her trusty old Louisville Slugger on the coffee table. “I’d rather you just shouted,” she said, and headed back up the stairs. “Goodnight, Spike.”

“Goodnight,” he said, maintaining his casual smile until he heard her bedroom door close. Then he let himself fall into dejection, sliding his hands over his face, which only brought her smell sharply into focus – all over his face and hands. Buffy.

He remembered her face, smiling up at her GI boyfriend. Still flushed from his attentions, and not a thought for him. She wasn’t going to help. He’d played his last card and it came up blank.

Empty, dejected, he stared at the closed drapes and waited for someone to come and tell him what to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crap. Another socially busy day so it's now 11:30 and I'm struggling to get one in under the wire to continue my streak... can... she... do... it?
> 
> (YES! Got it up under the wire!)

Joyce came down the stairs the next morning in her usual state of jumbled readiness – fastening an earring while simultaneously tucking an envelope in her pocket and checking that she had her watch on. She raised her head to glance at the clock on the mantle as she passed through the living room and that’s when her eyes caught the corpse on the sofa and she gasped.

A hand over her panicked heart, she laughed at herself a little, remembering now Spike’s sudden appearance the night before. He was eerily still in sleep, curled on the couch in the posture of an errant child. His gelled-to-death hair was all disarrayed, as where his clothes, and his feet bare now he’d taken his boots off. He looked like a poor lost little lamb, despite being an evil bloodsucking fiend. Joyce shook her head at her own thoughts – even she didn’t know why she had a soft spot for this particular vampire, who wasn’t even ‘good’, as Buffy had explained that Angel fellow was, when she hadn’t liked Angel even when she thought he was just some perverted college boy making the moves on her sixteen-year-old daughter.

Oh, right. That was why.

Joyce picked up her wallet and keys from the little basket by the door and indulged her motherly instincts by fetching the big old afghan from the hall closet and draping it over the sleeping vampire.

That was when she noticed the bruise on his cheek, and the small cut on his forehead. She brushed a hand over his hair. Had there been a terrible fight the night before? Buffy had said Spike wasn’t on their side anymore after that… well, whatever it had been last summer, with Spike’s poor broken heart. But then again, Buffy had also said Heather Shumaker wasn’t her best friend anymore eight times in fourth grade.

“I’m trusting this vampire… this horror film monster… on a gut instinct. Buffy would shake her head at me.” Joyce sighed and hurried to the kitchen to get together her lunch before she was REALLY late to work. Life as the mother of a ‘slayer’: worrying about the intentions of random young men who could kill you in your sleep, but you were somehow certain wouldn’t.

Damn, Joyce wished she had a girlfriend she could talk about these things with. Maybe she would give Mr. Giles a call on her lunch break.

***

Spike woke surrounded by fluffy yarn that smelled strongly of cedar. He crawled confusedly out from under it and stared at the quiet, tasteful room he found himself in. Sunshine glowed under the curtains and a clock on the mantle filled the room with a comforting, monotonous tick.

It was four in the afternoon. Buffy hadn’t come, and he was torn between feeling rejected and elated. It left him in a half-brittle emotional un-state that he was getting disturbingly used to.

So, numb, he went through the motions of checking the fridge for blood – did he really think an art gallery owner would have some? And then finding the loo. His hands shook a little as he undressed. Showers had a way of bringing out all the injuries he’d not had time to notice, but it was all right, taking stock, one bruise and sprain at a time, while the water and his fingers sluiced dried blood away.

As the water warmed his skin, he relaxed. No, it was definitely elation: she’d forgotten about him, and that wasn’t a bad thing. As soon as the sun set, he’d be off – pick a direction and keep walking. He’d find blood somehow. He was a resourceful vamp. He stayed in the shower scrubbing until every inch of him smelled only of soap.

Feeling a million times better, he took the time to wash his clothes, too, in the sink with hand soap – he was nothing if not resourceful. He ironed them dry in Buffy’s mum’s bedroom, which was where the ironing board was, and if she came in to find a naked vampire ironing, well, good on the old girl.

It took a while to get the jeans dry, and perhaps he shouldn’t have bothered with washing them, but there was a feeling in his gut that if he was going to get away, he had to leave everything behind – every bit of mud and blood that smelled of shame.

He dressed again, nodded, and headed out of the bedroom, toward the front door. The sun was already sinking.

Buffy was at the front door. There was dirt on her face and a bag slung over her shoulder. She smelled of sewer and wet and glared at him like it was all his fault.

“You came here?” She threw her bag onto the couch. “I told you to go home. The dorm. Where I sleep.”

Not wanting to feel defensive, because it certainly wasn’t his fault if she couldn’t make her bloody orders make sense, he nevertheless froze in place. “A dormitory is not a home. ‘S temporary.”

Buffy groaned. “I can’t take this. I nearly get killed… wait, where’s Mom?”

“I didn’t eat her if you’re wondering.”

Buffy barreled into the hallway, shouting, “Mom?”

Spike silently cursed himself for being frozen to the spot and continued down the stairs to the front door.

Inches from freedom, Buffy shouted at him to, “Get over here.”

He let his fingertips fall from the doorknob reverently and walked into the kitchen, where the Slayer was slapping together an ungodly assortment of lunchmeats. “Where is she, and what did you tell her?”

“Who?”

Buffy paused, holding up a slice of salami with oddly violent intent. “My mom. God, who else?”

“She was gone when I got up. Didn’t tell her anything. Just that you were all right and I was waiting to meet you.”

She slammed the top bread on her sandwich and squished it down. Glaring at him, she said, “You are NOT going to tell Mom about… about gross things. She wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

“Think I don’t know that? What mother would believe that her precious angel had her way with a vampire then kicked him in the head?”

Buffy’s mouth fell open. She picked up her sandwich and stormed into the dinning room.

Spike followed and leaned at the doorway, startled with the discovering that tears were welling in Buffy’s eyes as she choked down her food.

“I… didn’t mean that in a bad way,” he said, unconvincing even to his own ears. He picked at the paint on the door-jamb wondering how even an evil bitch like the slayer could make him feel so unaccountably apologetic when she cried.

Buffy dropped her sandwich. “I’m not hungry,” she said, petulantly. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“I’ll show myself out,” Spike said quietly.

Not quietly enough. At the base of the steps she said, “No. You’re staying here”

She looked up and their eyes met. Then she continued up the stairs.

Spike sat down and finished eating her tribute to all things meat. It wasn’t blood, and it wasn’t his first choice, but sometimes he could fool the hunger if he just had something to chew on.

Buffy came out of her shower to find Spike leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom, thumbs hooked in his belt-loops. “Mum’s home,” he said, jerking his head toward the stairs.

She tightened the towel around her chest. “What did you tell her?”

“That you were here, had been in a fight, and were taking a shower. She’s all worried. You should talk to her.”

Buffy slapped him. “Don’t talk to me about my mother.”

He rolled his eyes skyward. She decided to ignore it and hurried into her bedroom.

He came in as she was dressing. She cried “eep!” and ducked behind the closet door. “What are you… KNOCK!”

With a smirk he took a step back and rapped his knuckles on the still-open door.

“Close that!” Buffy hissed.

He did. “Why are you keeping me here when you can’t stand me?” He glanced at her sideways. “Just let me go.”

“No! And don’t look at me!”

He sighed and turned his back. “Saw all the important bits already.”

“God! You’re so… ugh!” She wriggled into her pajamas. “Are you trying to get smacked?”

“What do you want me to do?” He raised and lowered his arms, looking dejectedly at his own chipped nails. “You got me waitin’ on your every bleedin’ command, so tell me, Slayer. What am I supposed to do?”

He heard the soft exhalation of her falling onto the bed. “Just make me feel better,” she muttered into the coverlet.

He frowned at her. Pink, novelty-print pajamas on her muscled killer’s body. With a grimace he sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for her calf.

She kicked away from him. “What are you doing?”

“Makin’ you feel better,” he replied with a grimace, and determinedly grasped her ankle, rubbing his thumb into the tendon where he knew it would do the most good.

She stiffened at first, but then groaned and laid her face on the coverlet again. He moved methodically up her leg, massaging the tension from her feet, her ankle, her calf. Then, not wanting to go any higher, he moved to the other leg.

The pink pajamas were really throwing him off. He smoothed the flannel down and moved to her hands. She stared at him with confusion as he kneaded her fingers and palms and worked down her wrists. Then she rolled over and pulled her hair away from her back. Right. He didn’t need a PhD to figure that one out. He pressed into her shoulders and she moaned gratefully.

He eased the tension from her shoulders and worked down her back. She winced now and again as he touched bruises hidden by fuzzy fabric. Then he was working on her lower back and she rolled over under him.

He lifted his hands from her. He could read the expression on her face. It said, “Please don’t make me ask.”

He sat back on his heels and raised his head. The bitch could bloody well ask.

Buffy bit her lower lip. “Spike?”

“Feeling better?” He pretended to be interested in the contents of her side-table.

And her hand was crawling up his arm. And then she was sitting up, wriggling closer to him. He jumped up, but she followed. “Don’t,” she said, drawing him back onto the bed.

He blinked, still looking vaguely off at the beside lamp. “Don’t what? Gotta be specific, mind. I’m not in a mood to guess.”

She’d gotten a hand up under his shirt again – what was her fascination with his stomach? Shyly, she whispered in his ear, “I want you to… do what you did before. You know.”

Unfortunately, he did. And that was enough for the geas. “Don’t suppose a lad saying ‘no’ would change your mind?”

She didn’t let go, though, didn’t just lie back and make ready, she rubbed her cheek against his and slid her hand on his arm up into his shirt-sleeve, as though she meant to undress him, only she didn’t, both hands just caressing his skin, reaching as far as the fabric allowed.

He pulled the stupid shirt off over his head and pushed her into the bed. She wriggled out of the ridiculous pajama bottoms and he helped her, sliding a hand along her thigh as it was exposed – see how she liked it.

And then she was arching up and making quiet little whimpers as her hands fisted the sheets. He lifted her legs onto his shoulders and slid to lie more comfortably.

He listened to Joyce moving about downstairs, wondering what would happen should she get it in her head to check in on her daughter. He tried to figure out what she was doing by sound – a cupboard opened. A drawer. A knife scraping against its block. Getting lunch ready for the next day.

Buffy moaned, “More.” He ignored it. He was already doing ‘more’, wasn’t he? But then she said it again, raising her hips against him and hooking her leg around his arm. “More,” she said.

He licked the crease of her thigh and looked up at her, her chest rising and falling under flannel. “More what?” he asked.

“Please. I need… I need you.”

Ah. He smiled. There was blood coloring Buffy’s cheeks, and she hid her face under one arm. “Too shy to ask your slave to fuck you, pet? Not too shy to have him do it, though, are you?”

“Just do it,” she whimpered, rising off the bed, eagerly seeking contact with anything.

“Jus’ a sec,” he said, unbuttoning. “Can’t just order a dead man to wake up, yeah?”

She hooked his jeans with her toes as he worked them down and helped him remove them. He dug his fingers into her hungry flesh, closed his eyes and concentrated on the smell of arousal, warm and female. He slicked his fingers back and forth as she bucked impatiently and then jacked himself to full hardness.

It didn’t take long. He positioned himself and felt her rising to meet him. He sighed and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t even pretend it was Drusilla… too warm, too alive, her heartbeat pounding through thin skin as he sank into her.

She threw her head back, baring her throat, arching into him, still wearing that crazily juvenile pajama top. He unbuttoned it with one hand while he supported himself with the other and set a leisurely pace, slow, deep fucking. At least until he got that offensive pink off of her.

Buffy obligingly wriggled out of the top. But she never looked at him, even when she grabbed his hips and returned his thrusts with punishing haste.

Joyce thought she heard something, once or twice, while she finished up work in her home office and then while she prepared a few things for breakfast tomorrow – (if Buffy didn’t want to talk now, well, she would certainly talk over pancakes.) Joyce didn’t think anything of those quiet, random noises, until she stopped to check in on Buffy on her way to bed. She opened the door and immediately, those half-heard sounds took on a new and terrible meaning.

Spike was in Buffy’s bed. Awake, he looked at her with alarm, quickly moving the sheet up his bare chest. Buffy’s head was pillowed on his shoulder, her arm across him, and her shoulder was bare.

Spike tapped Buffy on the shoulder and looked about to say something. Joyce quickly closed the door.

Spike tried again to wake Buffy, who was a dead weight on his arm. “Buffy… Buffy, love?” She let out a little snore and shifted her head. That was all the response he got. Spike sighed. “Well, fuck,” he said.

Joyce paced the hall, glancing now and then at the closed door to her daughter’s room and repeating the mantra, “She’s nineteen now. She’s going to make her own mistakes. I should just go to bed.”

After about four repetitions of that she went back downstairs, checked the clock, and called Giles.

***

Buffy awoke first to a heavenly smell. Pancakes. Fresh, buttery… and bacon! She peeled her cheek from the drool-and-sweat slick surface it was stuck to. That’s when she remembered the night before, and looked down at that surface – one shapely, nude, Spike chest.

Oh no. She scrambled backward off the bed as though escaping a fire. She landed flat on her butt with an “oof!”

Which woke up Spike. He sat up, rubbing the moist patch on his right pectoral. “I allowed to get up now?”

“This… this is of the bad.” Buffy found her pajama top, conveniently under her elbow, and pulled it hastily on. “What… what are you doing still here?”

“I tried to leave. Remember? You pulled rank. ‘Quit squirming’ you said, ‘don’t you dare get up’. What the bloody fuck was I…”

“Sh!” Buffy glanced anxiously to the door.

“Your mum came in last night,” Spike said, with affected casualness. He smothered a grin as Buffy’s jaw dropped open. “Saw us in bed together. Can I get up now?”

“Oh God!” Buffy wrapped her arms tight, looking from the smug vampire to the door, and then to the window.

“You gonna jump out the window, leave me to explain things to your mum? Not very brave, Slayer.”

She turned her back on him. “Just… get dressed. I have to think.”

***

Joyce sat at the kitchen counter holding her coffee. She’d called her assistant at the shop, saying she was going to work from home that morning, and made a pile of nutritious and over-compensating food. She knew, with absolute certainty borne of… well, impatience, she supposed – that her daughter was awake, and at that very moment making a decision. A decision she had better get right.

She was surprised when Spike appeared in the kitchen first. “Morning, Joyce,” he said with all the solemnity of a banker delivering a past-due notice. “Slayer’s still getting her kit on. You know girls.”

He attempted a shrug that came out more like a twitch and leaned against the wall, looking everywhere but at Joyce.

Joyce set down her coffee. “How long have you been involved?”

He finally looked at her. “Involved?”

“With my daughter.”

He scratched the side of his head and looked down. “We’re… we’re not ‘involved.’”

“Spike, you might think everyone over forty is clueless, but we’re not. I know what I saw.”

“I‘m actually, uh, older than you,” he said.

She folded her arms and waited.

He licked his dry lips and checked his boots for scuffs. “What you saw. Yeah. About that… uh… nothing happened, yeah?” He looked up, eyes wide, pleading. “Buffy wanted me to tell you she wouldn’t do something like that under your roof. She was just tired an’ sore and sad from her fight so I gave her a massage, that’s all.”

“A massage,” Joyce monotoned.

“It’s the truth. I may help your daughter out now and again, Joyce, but I don’t think about her that way. I don’t have any bloody designs on her. Fact I hope she finds a boyfriend soon.” He smiled a little at the end, and Joyce thought that these words, at least, sounded sincere.

“But you were still in her bed. Naked.”

Another unnecessary check of his boots. “Wasn’t… wasn’t naked.”

Buffy came in then, moving purposefully, a bullet to the shambling fidgets of the vampire. “Morning Mom,” she said, and blew her mother a kiss while she grabbed a plate. “This all looks wonderful. And Spike? Naked? EW. He just took his shirt off because black cotton t-shirts are apparently hard to come by and stain with massage oil.”

Joyce stared at her daughter. Buffy loaded pancakes onto a plate. “Anyway, Spike needs a place to stay, temporarily. I was thinking he could stay here. You would totally not notice him. I’ll bring blood and stuff and, you know, just keep him out of the sun?”

Joyce and Spike were both now staring at Buffy, who had one fingertip in her mouth, licking off spilled syrup. “What?” she asked.

Joyce sighed and shook her head, blinking rapidly. “Are you sleeping with him?”

Buffy scowled convincingly. “I say again: EW. No.” She set her plate down and went to the cupboard for a glass.

Joyce looked to Spike for confirmation. He was once again looking everywhere but back at her. She sighed. “I don’t know, Buffy. I do have company sometimes…”

“Spike won’t be here all the time. I mean, he just needs a place to sleep. Right, Spike?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, kinda need a place. Was stayin’ with Rupert, and then Xander, neither of those worked out too well.”

“Well,” Joyce said, “I…”

“Thanks Mom! You’re the best.” Buffy kissed her mother’s cheek in passing.

“But, honey, we haven’t…”

“Just work it out with Spike. I have to hurry to get to class.”

Joyce stared as her daughter woofed down the pancakes and, still so chipper she could cut wood, dashed out the back door.

Joyce turned back to Spike. “What just happened?”

He shrugged.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say this was going to be the last part? HAAAA HAAA HAAA! I lied! Evil me.
> 
> Takes place during the episode "Goodbye, Iowa"

Giles fell into step beside Buffy as she was walking between classes. “We need to talk,” he said.

“Um… hi. What are you doing on campus?”

“Your mother called me last night. She wanted first to know if I’d noticed anything odd about you, if you were hanging around a certain person more than necessary, and then she asked me if she could trust Spike.”

“Oh.”

“’Oh’ indeed. She is under the impression that you have a ‘thing’ for the vampire.”

“Well she’s wrong. I just brought Spike home last night because I think mom’s house is a good place to keep him. It’s centrally located, as far as the cemeteries go, and she has lots of room she’s not using.”

Giles stepped into her path. “Spike is not a puppy you can bring home to mother. He is a dangerous undead creature.”

“Who is totally under our control now,” Buffy said. Then she looked up at Giles with sudden alarm. “You didn’t… you didn’t say anything to her to make her think I had a ‘thing’, did you? Because there is no thing. Spike… not a thing. I mean, not that kind of thing.” She grimaced.

“I assure you she would not get the idea from me. But I’m beginning to get some ideas myself.”

“What idea is there to get?” She looked anxiously around at the other students walking to classes.

“That while he is an evil, undead monster, Spike resembles a handsome young man and is currently, as you put it, ‘totally under our control’.”

“What are you saying, Giles?”

“I’m saying power corrupts, Buffy, and you aren’t immune from it.”

“EW. There has been no corrupting of any kind!”

“Good.” Giles tucked his hands in his pockets. “Then I’ll see you at the meeting tonight. Don’t be late.”

Buffy stayed where she was, holding her backpack strap with both hands, while Giles walked away through the trees.

***

Joyce came home from work to find Spike sitting on the couch, just as she had found him before, hands on his thighs. The television was off. She walked into the kitchen to put her lunch things away and found the remains of breakfast still out, not a thing touched. She returned to the living room. “Did you… just sit there all day?”

He looked guilty. “Don’t mean to put you out, Joyce… just wasn’t sure if you wanted me touching anything.”

“That’s an absurd excuse for being lazy, Spike. Why would I leave you in my house and expect you not to touch anything?”

He stood and ran a hand over his head. “Xander got tetchy… I was stayin’ with him a while. Didn’t want… well, after last night, didn’t want to give you any MORE reasons to dust me.”

“Well, I can say I hoped the kitchen would be tidied up, or at the least the pancakes eaten…”

When she said he could finish off the hours-old breakfast, he’d leapt at it like a starving man.

She stood in the hallway, a little amazed at this display of super-human speed. He already had a fork in his mouth. “I know I’m going to regret asking this,” she said, “but don’t vampires normally eat something a little more… blood?”

He pulled the fork out of his mouth and swallowed. “Can’t bite.”

“You mean…” her brow creased. “Vampire bite?”

“Nope. One little ‘grr’” he pantomimed biting, fingers up like claws, “and bam! Little lightning bolts all over my cerebral cortex.” He waved one hand overhead, wriggling the fingers to represent electric shocks while his other hand smeared the last bit of pancake around in the syrup.

“Well, at least you can get the nutrition you need from pancakes,” Joyce said, taking a seat across from him.

Spike looked up guiltily. “Uh… no. Truth is I’m not gonna be able to digest a bit of this. Just… like food, you know? Taste, texture?”

Joyce mouthed a slow “oh” and started clearing the breakfast things. “So…” she searched the counter as though it contained a conversation topic better than vampire bulimia. “You need blood.”

“Slay… er… Buffy said she’d bring some.” His stomach made a weird flip. What number promise was this on the meal that never came?

“Well, where does one get blood?” Joyce shook her head, her curls bouncing. “Buffy isn’t stealing from hospitals, is she?”

“No! Slayer’d never do that. I don’t think.” He shrugged. “There’s butchers sell blood. Animal blood. In this town I doubt they let a drop spill, probably sell more of that than steaks and sausages.”

“Well, I suppose I could pick some up then, on my way home tomorrow. That is… if you’ll still be here.”

He leaned back from his cleaned plate and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. “You’ll have to ask your daughter about that. Since I’ve been de-fanged, I’ve been…” he looked away and his voice dropped, “under her protection.”

“Well, we should figure out where you’re sleeping then, and maybe work out a schedule? I don’t suppose you can pay rent?”

He sighed. “I am sorry, Joyce. I’m broke. I could pitch in though. Know how to do laundry, at least. But I’m not too domestic. Last time I had a house to worry about, a man being domestic meant he knew the housekeeper’s name.”

He lifted his head with a small smile and Joyce found herself smiling back. “Having a hundred-year-old houseguest might be interesting,” she said. “I’ve always wondered about the past. You could tell me the things they don’t put in books. Like…” she waved a hand helplessly, trying to pull an idea from the air. “Like what it smelled like.”

“Bad,” he said, grinning. “And that was just Angelus’ after-shave.”

“Come on. You could read Anna Karenina and picture exactly what the ladies’ dresses were like.”

“Dreadful. Horrible period for women’s fashions and the Russians were the worst of the bunch. Can’t tell you how thrilled I was when the 1920s finally put the coffin-nails in the corset. Like to see a woman’s real shape, you know?”

He looked at her then with an appreciative lift of his eyebrows and his eyes flicked down briefly and Joyce found herself blushing like a schoolgirl and adjusting the ruffled collar of her blouse.

The back door slammed open. “Hi mom!” Buffy called full volume, then stopped, quieting. “Oh, hi. Sorry, thought you’d be upstairs or something.”

“Still clearing breakfast,” Joyce gestured over the counter. “I have no life.”

“Don’t be silly. You have the shop!” Buffy kissed her mom on the cheek. She then jerked her thumb at the open door. “Spike. Meeting. Let’s go.”

Spike stood and scowled. “It’s still sun out there.”

“Please. That’s totally sunset.”

“The skin doesn’t care how pink the rays are, Slayer. You drag me out now you’ll be bringing your precious Scooby club a big pile of dust.”

Joyce looked from her daughter to the vampire. There was tension clear on both their faces, and mutual dislike. Her fears from the previous night seemed, suddenly, completely unfounded. She stood. “Great. You can both clean up this mess before you go.”

“Mom!”

Joyce held up a hand. “No arguments, young lady. I have stuff to take care of.” That stuff being an after-work bubble bath, but Buffy didn’t need to know that.

Spike picked up his empty plate and carried it to the sink. “Come on, Slayer, it won’t kill you to rinse a dish.”

“And here’s me remembering our little ‘slave’ conversation,” Buffy said, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. “Spike, I order you to clean up this mess.”

He snatched a wash-rag from the edge of the sink with as much violence as could be put into such an innocuous action and began wiping up. Wasn’t humiliating. Maybe he was going to do that anyway. He certainly had spilt the majority of the syrup that lay on the counter.

He was at the sink, filling it with soapy water when he felt her come up behind him. He straightened. “Don’t,” he said.

Her hands snaked around his torso. He kept his eyes on the stream of water from the faucet. “Don’t,” he repeated.

“I like it when your hands are busy,” she said.

Or tied up, he thought, but bit his lip to keep from saying it. Just wash the bloody dishes, he told himself, and pretend to ignore her. Her hands were busy themselves, running over his t-shirt and stroking his sides, leaving trails of dirty warmth behind them.

***

“Oh good, you’re here,” Rupert Giles said, looking pointedly only at Buffy as they came in. “We’ve been discussing this… Initiative, and the attempt on your life.”

Blissfully ignored, Spike found a far corner of the living room to lounge in.

“Hey, Fangless! Why don’t you fetch us donuts or something?” Xander asked with malicious glee as Spike walked by.

Spike glared. “Because, half-wit…” he stopped himself short of saying “I don’t have to obey YOU” – when was he going to learn to stop correcting their control of him? Instead he stuttered, “That… that’s… your job,” and triumphantly slunk against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

“Buffy, I’m worried,” Willow said, twisting a book-page. “These guys have… guns and things. Maybe it’s time for the hiding plan?”

“I don't see why we can't stay right where we are.” Giles chuckled, “Because it's very unlikely those Initiative boys are going to come around here…”

The door opened to reveal Riley Finn, who glanced around the room in honest shock to find himself the center of attention. “Buffy?” He took a step forward. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“You know?” Buffy crossed her arms and stepped in front of the group, as though to protect them from the innocuous farm boy.

“Does anyone remember that this is my private residence?” Giles asked the air.

“I know something went down, I…” he looked past Buffy’s shoulder to Spike, leaning against the wall by the kitchenette. “That’s Hostile Seventeen!”

Spike coughed and looked aside and said, with a painfully bad accent, “Naw, I’m a friend of Xanderrr…” he sighed, losing that, “Bugger it. You got me. Gonna take me in?” He stepped forward, wrists out, looking remarkably hopeful.

Buffy glared at the vampire. “That’s Spike. He’s…. it’s complicated.” She turned back to Riley. “Back on subject! Maggie tried to kill me.”

Anya leaned over Xander’s shoulder and said in a helpful voice, “It didn't work, but they're all upset anyway.”

“You’re hiding HSTs now? I’ve been looking all over…!”

“That’s not what this is! He’s… helping. Kind of.”

Xander jumped to his feet. “How about you stop accusing Buffy and explain why your boss just tried to make monster food out of her?”

“That’s not… Look, I know how it looks, but Professor Walsh would never do something like that.”

Spike sauntered forward. “Can I go? This conversation’s accomplishing dick-all and I can get better drama on the telly.”

“By all means,” Giles said, “PLEASE go kill something.”

“Thanks, oh, and soldier boy?” Spike turned around at the door, “If you’re trying to kill her?” He smiled and raised both thumbs.

“Wait!” Willow jumped up. “Um… you be back before dawn, young vamp!”

“Oh yeah,” Buffy said, nodding. “Spike, when you’re done killing demons and stuff, go wait for me at my mom’s house.”

Spike saluted with a sneer and disappeared out the door before anyone could shout any more orders.

Riley turned in place, looking at the shop door and then back at Buffy, who was still facing him like a potential enemy. “Did I wake up in the wrong universe? You just let a hostile go? To your MOM’S house?”

“I said it’s complicated.” She squared her shoulders. “Spike can’t bite any more. That was YOU guys.”

“Wait… ‘Spike’? Isn’t that the guy you said you were going to marry?”

If eyes could roll out of heads through sheer rolling, Buffy’s would be on the floor. “There was a spell.”

“And now he’s taking your orders? Why, because you’re this slayer thing?”

“There’s… another spell.”

“Which I did.” Willow raised her hand proudly, then lowered it. “Oh, I kinda did the other one too.”

“Spells? Magic? Do you even know what you’re doing? Has any of this so-called magic been tested?”

Giles rolled his eyes. “Oh good lord,” he said.

Anya hurried over to Giles. “You tell ‘em,” she patted his arm. “Magic has been an approved method of dealing with problems since before the first designer of the first gun was born! It’s as safe as wishes…” she stopped patting and took a step back, “Which I know nothing about being a normal, healthy Midwestern girl. Ha! Xander?” She retreated to her boyfriend’s arms.

Riley threw up his hands, unsure why everyone was looking at him like he was likely to shoot up the room. “We really, really have to talk,” he said to Buffy.

***

Joyce knew something wasn’t quite right. She came home from work the next day with a pint carton of pig’s blood – and how odd was it that the butcher shop had pint cartons of blood and didn’t even blink when you bought them? Spike appeared in front of her and she nearly dropped the bag.

“Goodness! Can you… make noise or something?”

“You got blood,” he said, and rolled one shoulder, trying to look casual, though he was leaning into her personal space. “Can I…”

She held up the bag. “I wasn’t planning on eating it myself.”

He grabbed it and before she’d blinked he was draining the plastic container. The greasy deli-smell of the blood and the texture made Joyce grimace and avert her eyes. She walked to the sink and set her purse on the counter. “I take it Buffy forgot to bring you something?”

“Three days, that makes,” he said when he finally came up for air. He ran a finger around the inside of the carton. “Ta, Joyce. I was about to start losing my rakish good looks.”

“This is why I never let her have a pet.” Joyce shook her head. “That did NOT come out right.”

“Came out perfectly sensible to me,” he muttered. He waggled the empty container. “Where you want this?”

“Rinsed, and in recycling.” She unpacked her lunch box and noted with pleasure that this time there were no dishes waiting in the sink. “What happened last night?”

“Scooby meeting.” He shrugged. “I bugged out early. Dusted a couple vamps still had grave-dirt on ‘em.”

“And Buffy?”

He sighed. “Hopes of a romance with young Riley Finn are dashed on account of the wanker’s boss tried to kill her.”

“Kill her?” Joyce dropped her Tupperware and turned to face Spike.

He held up a placating hand. “There was an ambush or something. Nothing the slayer can’t handle.”

“You know, I’d really like to know when Buffy’s in danger.”

He looked down. “That’s every day, love. You know that.”

Joyce shook her head. “Then maybe I’d rather not know.”

“’S not fair, slayer having a mum.”

“Everyone has a mother.” Joyce left the room.

Spike followed her to the dining room, where she started sorting through bills on the sideboard. “I mean it’s not fair on you, bein’ the slayer’s mum. Never… never thought about that.”

“Well, it’s only one percent more worry than being a mother in the first place.”

Spike kicked the wall. “Makin’ a woman like you worry, well, that’d make me feel guilty. You know, if I was capable.”

She gave him an odd look.

“’Cause I was gonna kill her, you know. That one time. Mostly just that one time.”

She chuckled. “Do me a favor, Spike, if you ever get the urge again, kill me, not my daughter.”

“Can’t do that, Joyce. Don’t wanna kill you. Never did.”

“Then you don’t understand,” she said, still sorting bills.

Spike spoke quietly, “I do understand. Caring about someone so much you’d gladly give yourself up, give anything up for them.” Joyce turned, squinting at him. He shrugged. “I’ll promise not to kill her, if it helps, for your sake, no matter how much the bi… girl deserves it.” He smiled. “But I’d never do you in, Joyce. Like having you in the world.”

“Thank you,” she said, still frowning.

“Right.” He pushed off the wall. “Enough bonding, eh? I’ll leave you to your things.”

She watched him leave the room, head down, shoulders hunched. Something, she thought, was definitely not right.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The End! (I don't believe me, either, but it's true!)
> 
> Takes place during "This Years Girl". Huh - all this writing and I only made it through six episodes. Not really a full season re-write, but then, I didn't want to have to fuss with Adam.
> 
> I should mention that in this and other segments of this story that use dialog from the show, I used [The Buffyverse Dialog Database](http://vrya.net/bdb/ep.php) website. And how awesome it is! Not just useful in getting actual dialog, also helps me remember what happened in which episode, and things like "did so-and-so do such-and-such yet at that point?" (Not that I always paid attention to such knowledge once learned!)
> 
> Okay, without further ado:

Joyce came home in the middle of the day to pick up something she’d forgotten and found Spike leaning over the sink, dabbing his eye with a cloth. “I fell down the stairs.” He looked back at her. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?”

“Oh my god,” Joyce said. He winced away from her but she got the rag away from his eye. “Let me see. No, stop… I need to see.” He relaxed under her touch as she pried the swollen eyelid open and found his eye unharmed. She stepped back. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

“Joyce! I’m a vampire.”

“So?”

“So, this’ll be gone by morning. Hell, coulda lost the eye and it’d grow back.” He backed away from her, turning his head so the injured eye was hidden. “Just leave it, okay? I’ve ignored worse.”

Joyce frowned. “How did it happen? Did someone break in?”

“Told you. I fell.”

“Mister, that is a load of malarkey!”

He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her incredulously.

Joyce stifled a smile. “That sounded very ‘square’ and ‘mom’, didn’t it?”

“I didn’t say it,” Spike said, smiling back.

Humor draining from her expression, she said, “Who was here, Spike? Someone looking for Buffy? Are we in danger?”

“No one…” he sighed. “No one unexpected dropped by, yeah? Told you I fell.”

And that was that. Joyce raised and lowered her arms at the stubbornness of vampires, but she did have to get back to work. She stopped in the living room to see him settle back down to sleep on the couch. “You know you don’t have to sleep in here. I could make up the guest room… we have a folding cot around here somewhere.”

He shifted his shoulders and muttered something vague in the coverlet.

***

There was a loud thump in the basement and Joyce ran down the steps to find Spike crawling to his feet against the washing machine. Xander stood nearby, fists clenched. He looked up at Joyce in panic. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

Joyce narrowed her eyes. “What does it LOOK like?” She hurried to offer Spike a hand up, which he refused.

“Fell,” he said, wiping blood from his nose. Despite his bravado the other day about vampire healing, the skin around his left eye was still dark and swollen. “Just fell again, is all.”

“Alexander Harris, what are you doing here?”

Xander fidgeted. “I came to get Spike. We’re having a thing. Slayer thing.”

Spike gathered up the laundry basket and headed up the stairs.

Joyce frowned at Xander. “Spike’s been ‘falling’ a lot lately, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Heh. Who knew the evil undead were such klutzes?” Xander ducked his head and followed the vampire up the stairs.

***

Joyce made sure she was awake when Spike returned from the evening’s slaying adventure, though it meant working through half a box of her strongest tea.

Spike, as usual, looked a little worse for the wear. He limped to the coat-rack, taking off his duster.

“Have another fall?” Joyce asked.

He winced.

“I’m not blind. What’s going on?”

He sauntered into the center of the room, thumbs through his belt-loops. “Slayer needs backup, I go, beat up the nasties. You know that. It’s actually been pretty quiet, of late. Those soldier boys down by the college must be to blame, but I’m steering clear of them.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” She stood and adjusted the sash on her bathrobe. “You help Buffy, I understand that, but, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, you don’t even like her. Whenever she’s here, you look like… like a pit bull has your leg.”

“Not doing it for friendship and kittens, Joyce. I’m helping out because I’ve got no choice. Can’t feed, remember?” He looked down and added, “Gotta earn my keep.” The words sounded like he had to force them out.

“You don’t have to earn your keep with silence,” she said.

They were now standing just a few feet apart. He raised his head. “It’s not anything you have to worry about. I heal. All right? Perfect, every time. So there’s nothing a bunch of kids can do to hurt me. Not that’ll last. Buffy will get a soddin’ boyfriend, we can only hope, Xander’ll grow up and Willow will get bored. And the time that takes won’t even be an eyeblink to me. I’ve waited longer through worse.”

“Oh! You! Typical man. This isn’t about being strong and suffering. Wait… Willow? Willow is involved with this?”

“I didn’t say that. Let me handle my affairs, yeah?”

She shook her head. “You have to be responsible. You’re the adult in this situation. You should stop!”

He raised his chin. “Well, why don’t you just hit me, Joyce? I’ll tell the kiddies I fell down the stairs.”

“Why are you doing this?” Joyce balled her fists because now she DID want to hit him.

He slunk back. “Told you: no choice.” He fell onto the sofa.

“There’s always a choice.”

“No, there really isn’t.” His eyes were wide when he raised his head. “There’s magic, love. And there’s nature. I don’t give up easy. You might not know that, but its true. I don’t give up easy.”

“Fine.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll talk to them myself.”

“Please don’t.” He jumped up. “Joyce… don’t. I’m not supposed to have said anything.”

She stepped back before he could take her hands. “What were you not supposed to have said?”

“Nothing!” He threw his hands up. “Can’t you trust me on this?”

“No, I don’t think I can. I’m getting to the bottom of it.”

“Joyce!” He followed her to the stairs, set himself in her way. “Don’t,” he said.

She looked down at his hand on her sleeve and then cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you going to hit ME?”

“Course not. Bloody HELL, Joyce.” He stepped back, raising his hands as if in surrender. “You don’t know the mess I’ll be in if she… if they… damn it, just don’t.”

“Sorry, Spike,” she said. “I don’t have a choice.”

He tilted his head to the side, a strange expression coming over his face. “I always liked you, Joyce,” he said.

It sounded alarmingly like the start of a threat. Joyce tightened her grip on the banister. “But?”

“But nothing. You’re gorgeous, you know that?” His eyes flicked up and down, returning to hers with a hint of desperation. “Would you like to have a man like me, Joyce?”

She took a step back, eyes narrowing.

He frowned. "It's not like that! I actually LIKE you."

Her eyebrows rose. "As opposed to? What aren't you telling me?"

He bit his lip and looked away from her.

Joyce shook her head and went up the stairs.

***

“What is going on, Buffy? With you and Spike?”

Buffy looked up from her history text to see her mother standing at her table at the espresso pump, arms crossed and looking very un-put-off-able. “Nothing. Nothing with Spike. I…” Buffy squeezed her hands between her knees. “Okay, there is a guy. His name’s Riley and he’s normal. I mean, like, beyond normal. He’s from Iowa!”

“Riley?” Joyce blinked. “That isn’t the fellow whose boss tried to kill you?”

Buffy opened and closed her mouth. “Who told you…?” She shook her head firmly. “Riley’s leaving the Initiative. He told me. He’s giving it up for me.”

“The Initiative? What’s… wait. This isn’t what I came here to talk about.” Joyce slid into the chair opposite her daughter. “You and your friends just come by and pick Spike up like he’s some kind of… some kind of library book you’re sharing.”

Buffy covered her eyes. “Mom, he’s not real, okay? He’s not even a ‘he’, really, just an ‘it’. A re-animated corpse THING that talks in a dead man’s voice and uses his memories to make us think he’s more than that.”

“That’s absurd! With that logic there’s no way he could ever convince you otherwise!”

“Because he shouldn’t. Mom, this isn’t something I’m making up. There’s books! Talk to Giles.”

Joyce shook her head emphatically. “Spike… he has opinions on rock music.”

“Segue much, Mom?”

“Buffy, there’s no way the memories of a hundred-year-dead man would understand the difference between Psychedelic and Art Rock.”

“You’re not a slayer, mom. This… it’s not your world.”

Joyce laid her palm flat on the table. “You made it my world, Buffy. You brought it into my house as a guest.”

“Fine. I’m sorry to stick you with him. He can come back to staying in our dorm room. He kind of looks like he could be a student so maybe they won’t kick us out for keeping a guest…”

Joyce lowered her chin. “Buffy I’m not expecting you to find another place for Spike. But this… it has to stop. My god, it’s surreal, but I find myself wanting to say ‘take care of your vampire or I’ll take him away’!”

Buffy’s eyes were wide, her expression completely without understanding. “Mom, it’s JUST Spike.”

“He’s a man, honey, and I don’t like what it says about you that you would treat anyone this way.” Joyce sighed and stood. “I’d better go. But you will call me, young lady, and I want to MEET this Riley.”

“You’ll love him, Mom. He’s practically Clark Kent!”

“I’d better,” Joyce said with a note of threat that was only half teasing.

***

Spike was still asleep when she got home, draped across the sofa like an indolent teenager, boots up on the arm. Joyce wondered if excessive sleeping was also a warning sign.

She put the day’s blood supply in the refrigerator and spent some time contemplating her options for dinner. It didn’t pay to cook for one, but she was getting tired of Lean Cuisine. She was getting tired of a LOT of things, she thought, frowning.

A knock on the front door roused her from her reverie. Of course Spike didn’t get it – he looked just as corpse-like as when she’d come in. Joyce answered the door and was shocked when a fist hit her square in the jaw. Faith stepped over her sprawled legs. “Hi. Can I come in?”

Joyce touched her throbbing jaw in shock. “Faith?”

“In the flesh. You don’t mind a little visit, do you, Mrs. S?” Faith stopped in the middle of the room, looking at the figure on the couch. Spike was blinking and pushing himself up. “Woah, Joyce! Way to go, Mrs. Robinson!”

Spike squinted. “What the hell?” Then he saw Joyce on the floor, one hand still on her jaw. He stood up.

“You don’t want to mess with me, boy toy,” Faith said. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“So’m I.” Spike bared fangs.

“Huh.” Faith relaxed into a fighting stance. “Here I thought I was going to kidnap and terrorize Buffy’s mom. Didn’t think I’d have to save her first.”

Joyce supported her weight on the end-table. “Spike, no!”

Faith didn’t look away from the vampire in front of her, but her eyes narrowed in thought at Joyce’s outburst. “Am I interrupting something, or were you just waiting until after your nap to eat?”

“I’m the fuckin’ vampire Ghandi. Stay away from Joyce and I won’t eat you.”

“She’s a slayer,” Joyce said. “And you…”

“Are a vampire, yeah,” Spike interrupted quickly. “But what this little bint here doesn’t know is I’m not some week-dead stake-fodder. I’ve killed her kind. Done it easy.” He tilted his head, mouth slightly open. “So I suggest you turn around and walk out that door, little girl, while you still can.”

Joyce covered her mouth with one hand, her head still throbbing from the super-human impact of Faith’s fist. Spike and Faith moved around each other, keeping steady distance, eyes locked. Joyce bit her lip and edged toward the phone.

Faith spun a kick into the side-table that held the phone. Her leg still up, she said, “Going somewhere, Joyce?”

Spike threw a feint at Faith’s face. “Oi! Fighting me, here!” His brow was tight with concentration, trying to keep from attacking. Doubling over in pain wasn’t going to help anyone.

“There’s enough for everyone,” Faith said, spinning slowly back from her kick. She tilted her head. “Not very aggressive, are you?”

Spike threw another feint, a slow punch well over Faith’s head. She caught his forearm and spun a kick into his side. He barely managed to jump back from it.

Joyce held her breath, watching Spike dodge and feint, drawing Faith down the corridor to the kitchen. Away from the phone.

Faith shook her head as Spike dodged under yet another kick. “What gives, Blondie? This is frustrating as shit. You really a pacifist?” He wasn’t attacking. His feints were obvious. But she couldn’t get him open, he was as fast as she was, and putting all his thought and movement into defense.

Spike laughed. “Buffy gives me more of a fight than this, love. Come on, give it me good. What are you waiting for?”

With a scowl she jumped, kicking low, grabbing his arm before he could recover his guard and jabbing a hard punch into his jaw.

Spike’s broken lip stretched in smile. “That’s more like it,” he said, speech slurred by the impact. He twisted from her grasp and made a feinting kick to her middle. She didn’t react to it. She was beginning to catch on. He backed toward the back door. “Come on. Bet you can’t do that again.”

Faith held her ground, fists raised, frowning at him. Spike gestured for her to come to him. “Don’t stop now, love. I’ve fought poodles stronger than you.”

“You’re not fighting back,” Faith said. “What the fuck?”

“I’ll start as soon as you do. Or do you consider that little love tap a punch?”

She flew at him in a flurry of blows. Some he blocked, some he didn’t, she kicked and kneed and punched and pulled hair. He laughed and parried and danced back out of her grip. His smile was strained, his breathing labored. “Come on,” he said.

She shook her head and spun on her heel, jogging back to the living room.

Joyce dropped the phone as Faith ran toward her.

Spike tackled Faith inches from Joyce, and then ended up holding onto her in a very non-fighting way as his brain was wracked with pain.

Faith kicked free of him easily and stared down at his contorted features. She kicked him again and he hardly moved in response. “Well isn’t this odd.” Faith grabbed the phone and ripped it from its cord.

Joyce backed to the wall, hands up. “You don’t want to do this, Faith. I know you’re a good girl at heart.”

“No, I’m not. Didn’t you get that chin-memo I sent?” She tossed the phone into the opposite wall.

Spike staggered to his feet, moving to stand between Faith and Joyce.

Faith raised her palm at him. “And you! This supposed to be a vamp? You can’t even fight.”

“Don’t have to fight,” Spike said, straightening. “Just have to stand in your way.”

“That’s really cute,” Faith tilted her chin up. “Kinda noble for a vamp.” She punched him and shrugged. “Be rude not to oblige with a beat-down.”

“’Sokay,” Spike rubbed his jaw briefly. “I’ve had practice taking beatings from slayers.” He resumed his fighting stance.

“Stop,” Joyce begged. “Don’t do this. Faith… he can’t fight back. You can’t!”

And Faith spun around to kick Joyce, catching Spike in the shoulder as he leapt into her path.

Faith kicked him harder, causing him to fall over the coffee table. “You know, this is getting annoying. ‘Scuze me a moment, Joyce. I gotta dust this sucker.” She dropped a heel-kick into the table, breaking one end. She wrenched a piece of wood from it.

Spike rolled away from her strike. The smile and taunts were gone. The only sounds were grunts of effort and the slap of flesh and leather impacting as he blocked and parried.

Faith crowded him into a corner. He punched in desperation and fell against the wall with a hand pressed to his head as though afraid his brain was going to fall out.

“It hasn’t been fun, blondie,” Faith said, raising her stake.

The front door slammed open.

“Buffy!” Joyce cried.

“Hi, Mom,” Buffy said. “Thanks for the call.” She raised her fists toward Faith.

As Faith paused in confusion, Spike pushed her with all his strength.

His vision went white and he fell against the arm of the couch.

Buffy was almost as startled as Faith, but not too startled to kick the fallen Slayer over the broken coffee table.

Joyce ran up, holding high the baseball bat she’d retrieved from the hallway. “Get out of my house!”

Faith half-crawled up from the wreckage. She looked from mother to daughter, wiping blood from her chin. “Good to see you’re still such a happy family.” She stepped slowly backward, swinging her arms with false casual cheer. “Gee, B. You get everything I don’t.”

“Out,” Buffy said.

Faith turned and fled.

Buffy followed her to the door and slammed it shut, twisting the lock for good measure. She turned with a smug smile and saw her mother help Spike up onto the couch.

His nose and lip were bleeding, his cheek swelling. “What happened?”

Joyce turned from inspecting Spike’s injuries. “This ‘evil soulless thing’ defended me. He couldn’t even fight but he kept me safe from Faith.” She stood, squeezing Spike’s arm with one hand. “I need to get the first aid kit.”

“Not necessary, Joyce,” Spike said, quietly.

Buffy felt her gut shrink into a small, heavy lump. She took her mother’s place on the couch next to Spike and reached for his bruised cheek.

He flinched away. “Don’t,” he said. “Had enough today.”

Buffy bit her lip. “You protected my mother.”

“Yeah. Just bein’ useful, aren’t I?” He shifted as far from her as the couch would allow.

“Stop,” Buffy said, and then bit her lip even harder as he froze. Could a person spontaneously die from guilt? “I didn’t… I’m not going to order you to forgive me, or accept my apology. I just…” she reached for him again, tentatively. Her shaking fingertips settled on his arm.

Without looking at her, he said, “Don’t use the geas. Buffy, please. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t order me. My pride can’t take it.”

There was a sound of throat-clearing. Joyce stood in the doorway with a plastic box in her hands. “What,” she asked, “is a geas?”

***

“I’m sure you can appreciate how useful he’s been,” Giles said, avoiding Joyce’s gaze.

“Yes, he’s been very popular.” Joyce folded her arms stubbornly.

“He’s a dangerous, violent creature. Even with that… that chip, he’s not to be trusted.”

Willow bit her lip. She shook her head silently at Giles. Her eyes were a little wet. She pulled a tightly folded paper from her pocket. “I’m sorry,” she said, and read, “Chains of gaes never faith can force to be. Vassal proven true, from my spell I release you.”

Joyce raised her eyebrows. “Is that it?”

Willow nodded. “I… I felt it go. He’s free now.”

Wringing her hands by the door, Buffy said, “Mom… again, I’m…”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Joyce held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear anything from any of you for a week at least.”

Giles cleared his throat. “If you’re sure you’re doing the right thing.”

“Good-bye,” Joyce said, and strode out the door. Her car was waiting for her, engine running. She opened the passenger door.

“Where to?” Spike rested his wrist on top of the steering wheel.

“Pretend you’re still evil and kidnapping me.” Joyce settled into the seat and drew the safety belt across her lap. “I don’t want to think about anything for at least three days.”

He pouted. “I AM still evil.” He shifted the car into gear. “You’re going to see how an evil guy shows his gal a good time.”

“Just so long as we’re not running off to late-night carnivals and eating junk food until we’re sick.” She tucked her hair into her scarf and happened to catch a look of disappointment on his face. She smiled.

“Right,” he said, palming the wheel into a tight right turn. “You’re going to see an evil guy’s plan B.”

Joyce turned on the radio. Smiling together over the loud music, they drove out of town.

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by dreamsofspike on December 13, 2006.
> 
> "Things go a little worse for Spike in Sunnydale after he gets chipped than they did in the series -- and that's putting it lightly. Having a helpless victim around -- one who happens to have caused them lots of problems in the past and also to be extremely attractive physically -- brings out the darkness in several of the Scoobies, including Buffy. At least three different characters, at different times, are mistreating Spike on a pretty regular basis (at least one of them sexually, but not necessarily all of them), and keeping him quiet about it with threats and intimidation. Now -- I want major H/C sort of angst...a female character of your choice who somehow figures out what's going on, and somehow gets him out of the situation...kidnaps him and takes him away from Sunnydale, rescues him and hides him somewhere in town, but where the others won't find him...you pick who and how... I want to see the trauma, the intense emotion, the mind games that have been played with poor traumatized Spike, and ultimately the healing as whoever you choose loves him back to health...  
> Anybody feel up to this challenge? I'd love to see it :)"


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